Paper Girl

paper girl was folded over

seven times is the limit they say

try it

it's scientific

you can never get the back doubled to eight

but still paper girl curls the corner of her pages

like wings of a white crane but filled with 

scribbles

she curls at the corner of a hall holding back

tears

there are no more blank spaces

red ink splatters

mark her back with angry letters

screaming alphabets that march towards her ears

crawl through grey hemispheres and reside there

her head bows with the weight

with the pressure

she loses her composure

paper girl unfolds

baring her soul, perforated

a cobweb of words tied with hatred

...and then it was over.

Sacrifice

When he punched me in the face

I offered the other cheek

because love is sacrifice, right?

When she pulled my hair

down the stairs and into the toilet

I resigned my cries for another day

because patience is a virtue, it's true!

I signed away rights to my own self at seven months gestation

born premature, my lungs were not developed to carry enough air for me to scream out

the umbilical card forever wrapped tight around my windpipe

Obedience is a ritual we carry on long after we're born

Fueled by hopes for a higher heaven

Dreams carried on generation to generation by the medium of television

Shows where women burn at the altar of sin and admiration

We share laughter after every lashings

time forgives the faded marks on my back

as did the tears and ointment my mom rubs

admonishing me for being so stubborn, at age seven

"What will the family of your future husband say?"

Must

Save

Face

Don't talk back

Must 

Save 

Face

Close your legs

Must 

Save 

Face

It's for your own good anyway

Like cattle are branded and trained to be given away.

Because when a woman and a man marries,

it binds two families

but mother, you look away from signs of my slow slaughter

am I no longer your daughter?

Aurat

Brothers and sisters,

You say nowadays purity is scarce,

because you judge purity by the length of my scarf,

to you purity is a shy virgin

a woman's value trapped within our hymen

Some countries prize me by the absence of a driver's license

as if by being mobile I would drive myself straight to hell without their guidance.

But no matter how much skin I cover,

you will still find fault with the cloth's colour

Too bright!

Too pink!

Too many flowers!

As if my veil is the ground to plant your gaze

and I should provide you that space without complaints.

Should I not be bothered

that these brothers from a different mother

deign to write book after book after book

discussing the sins "caused" by my looks

Shaming the blame women shoulder for every single society's disorder.

From folk tale "hadith" you repeat

"Eve was created from Adam's bent rib

so treat women gently for their will is weak"

Is this why prisons are filled with male convicts?

and yet none of my sisters are ever in FBI's top ten most wanted list?

(I wikipedia'd this)

I get it, men are perhaps too strong for their own benefit

But that would be blaming God, wouldn't it?

As if He had made His creations imperfect

Blasphemy!

And so strong that you would rather

blame the weakness of the masculine gender

for bullying, rape, Justin Bieber's behaviour

and say "boys will be boys!"

Our hymen forcibly taken,

you then propose marriage as an only solution

to the bad credit you let us inherit

your seeds sown grow into gossip

and the nine months make ample time

for you to catalogue ways to criticize our robes becoming too tight.

Three definitions

In the Quran

Only three mention

Aurat (1)

A gap vulnerable to an enemy's worst intentions

Aurat (2)

Embarassing nudity with audience participation

Aurat (3)

Contents of the room of a couple bound by marital sanction

And yet

As a girl I was taught to be gentle and not talk so loud

To not be seen, to not be heard

In classrooms teachers teach me to read, but not to utter a single word

Especially when that word was "why?"

And so I grew up burrying questions deep in my silence

Building a labyrinth of tangled passions

Leaving a pile of "why"'s behind.

When we talk about purity

Start talking about integrity

talk about kindness, talk about intelligence

Let's talk about bravery because

these clothes conceal more than just skin

this cloth is not for hiding.