Artwork by Misha Ali (@nicenichecartoons)
Excuse me Sir,
will you be kind enough to point us to a direction where we can feel safe,
where our bodies do not feel like
crimes waiting to be committed,
where hungry eyes don’t follow
us like we are the next prey
in a long assembled line
where our hands do not need
to clutch pepper sprays and cars keys
like weapons as a last resort
(because you know what I mean)
and our lips are
not numb from repeating Surah Yaseen
on hundreds of prayer beads.
Tell me where should we go in order
to exist without becoming another
rape or violence statistic?
We have lived for far too long
in a society where our choices
become crimes that we have to pay
for by bleaching their sins of our skin,
by walking into the light at all times
even if it means blinding our eyes;
everyone knows that
darkness is an open invite for monsters
to hide in plain sight.
At the age of 17 I have started to fear
for my life, for my future, for innocence
that might be stolen but most of all I fear
for the justice we are not being given.
We are a a generation of women
whose mothers have sewn silence into
our mouths like a first language
and our tongues have become lead
from lack of use because we were
told that men might not hurt the mute,
our smiles are rusted and bruised
since if they are used someone might
confuse and abuse it as a sign of consent.
Us teenage girls with silent rebellions
and switch blades tucked in our purses,
Us women with chains around our necks
and anger that doesn’t burn anything
other than ourselves let alone the patriarchy.
What does it mean to have a home?
How will we know when we are told
that our bodies are the ones that
betray us first,
when the four walls of our birth home
become the first place we learn the
meaning of abuse,
when our schools and colleges tell
us that our exposed shoulders made us
a deservable target for a teachers
inappropriate gaze,
when these city roads have become
a haunted morgue for our gender
because sometimes I swear I can
hear a scream echoing underneath
these asphalt streets
| Umamah Farooq | I’m an average 17 yr old small town girl that loves to fangirl over fictional characters, binge read YA novels and write poetry for the sole purpose of understanding the world and myself a little more. |