February slipped by

The blessed month of March slanted through the calendar like the cool gentle breeze of December slithering through a small crevice of a closed window. February slipped by quietly and without attention, but it kept me quite entertained with the main agendas tucked inside its body. With various assembly presentations, competitions, examinations, and programs, my days of February weighted my shoulder like a heavy boulder waiting to be carried off.

(P.S. This post might be very long, but I will try my best to strip boredom off it)

The month February greeted me silently and without my paying any heed to its greeting. The reason for my not paying any attention to its saalam was purely because my focus was pinned on an agenda far greater than a mere greeting. I enrolled for a poetry competition solely for the purpose of entertaining myself, but also for gaining new experiences while getting rid of the social perturbation that was engraved in my introvert soul.

As I prepared myself for the first round, a part of me smiled and basked in glee because it thought the dexterity I possessed was far greater than any of the participants. However, another part of me felt burdened by dreadful nightmares where it showed me on the podium, a silver bead of sweat lining the edge of my face, my quivering lips failing to utter the next words, my mind sucked deep in a state that I found myself difficult to get out of, and the audience immersed in an imperishable laughter as they see a girl failing to recite her next verses to the judges. I can vividly picture the stern, disappointed emotions looming above the faces of the judges. The noticeable eye-contact they make to each other as they cut my name off the list with a deep dark red ink.

I awake. A part of me yearned to yell to oblivion, yearned for the motherly affection of nature, yearned for someone to pat me on the back and motivate me on my journey. Another part of me wanted to prove to my mother that I am capable of pulling something off. This part of me yearned to elicit a smile above my mother's face, to let her know that her daughter acknowledged and approved of her diligence.

On the day of the first round, I went to school with Emily Dickinson's lines knotted tightly inside my brain. I tried my best to prevent the knot from letting lose. The competition was to be held during break time, and the class before break time was mathematics, where focus was absolutely entailed. My class teacher was gracious enough to spare me five minutes before time to let me practice, but I could not practice. I simply could not stop my trembling fingers, a piercing cold slowly seeping through my fingers and bringing unease to my heart. Palpitation grew louder, and gained intensity until it was a deafening pounding against my body. The horrifying nightmares began to pour in, and blankets of fear coated me. I was cupped in a never-ending world of misery. The string of words that I forcefully tried to engrave slowly started diminishing and escaping, as if they too were exhausted from this world of misery.

Long story short(I do not want to remind myself of the horrid incident), when my turn came to present, and my name was uttered, my mind shut itself. My lips parted, but voice failed to emerge from the throat as if it was locked securely. The expressions I had memorized with diligence did not come into place. My voice sounded like a feeble sliver of moonlight slowly getting sucked by the hovering clouds. Everything went haywire until my anxiety grew to such an extent that I was compelled to ask the judge to look at my paper for one more time.

Yes, it was dreadful, or even worse. My clenched fist after I looked at the transition of emotions that played on the judges' faces. The expressions swam from expectant and jubilant to dismay and disappointed. I, too was disappointed at how I fared.

However, I did not expect myself to appear in the 2nd round until one find Tuesday morning, I was strolling through the campus when a large sheet of white paper caught my eye. There was a list on the paper, a list of names. And there it was, in bold, dark black beneath the title: my name. Glee washed my soul in bright colors, as if I swam in a river of rainbows. Jubilance embraced me, and a faint voice enraptured my contented heart. The subtle, gentle voice which I knew belonged to my mother, rolled out. "Good job, but try better". A certain brusqueness gripped the voice, but behind the stern tone, existed a hidden emotion of joy.

I was now, more than ever determined to do better than I how performed last time. This time I worked to the bones, yearning to grasp the silky certificate on which, in big bold letters, would be written my name. The 2nd round went better than expected. I was the second person to recite, and this time the judges grew in number. I eased my heart, straightened my back, and let my voice roll out of me smoothly. Expressions and emotions wafted through the verses until the whole room was suffused with my stern, loud voice. Passion began seeping in, creating this wave of confidence that members of the judge noticed and appreciated. Perturbation ceased, but did not stop. However, it failed to beat me. I won against it.

The percussive sound of applause reverberated throughout the whole room, and my heart gloated. I swam in the river of pride, I climbed the mountains of joy, I crawled through grasses of gay, until I found myself buried between my mother's arms, coated in motherly warmth.

The nods of approval pleased me, but what pleased me even more was finding my name once again, in black and bold, under the list of winners who won first position. It was joy, but even better.

When I announced the news to my mother, I embraced her tightly, and she returned my embrace by gently stroking my hair and patting the back of my shoulder. The transfer of pride that was sucked out of the mother, and seeped inside the daughter gave birth to endless emotions, happiness being the most prominent.

"See the rain before the rainbow. Just because one carries it well, does not mean it is not heavy."

A fist of golden sunlight bore through my jubilant heart, and settled at an unknown crevice. The crevice of hope.