Artwork by her @everrglo.w
Poem 1: Aesthetics-In Tongues
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My body has aesthetics
A taste/ A style it abide’s with me.
But the aesthetics diminish
I have been led on,
On the tracks/ in the shoes of same brand
It doesn’t works with me-the brand
Yet I’m forced to walk(in them)
The world i felt on my shoulders
It conspired against me,
My aesthetics
Are just accessories?
Accessories of the same brand,
I’m forced to embrace?
I was brought in the world just so I can be an accessory?
What about my aesthetics, aren’t they really what makes me distinctive?
My body has aesthetics
A taste/ A style it abide’s with me.
But I lost it.
Poem 2: Air of Patriarchy
lingering and breathing in air of patriarchy.
Posters of grief, aur ye unkahi baatein crumbled under your footsteps.
life that accepted man’s actions and repelled women’s azaadi-
Footsteps towards takabur.
Birth of the lost boy who was taught love but defined envy within the char deevari.
You called it a jung, while the torment sweeps away the dead remains of aurat aur uski izzat.
Aurat to bus aurat hai,
kisi kinaare per toot pari
Yahi dil behta chala gaya
Raaste, ye waade sub jhaar gaye
Aur lehro mein iski izaat doob
| Bakhtawar | I’m Bakhtawar Azhar
16 years old currently doing my O-Levels. I like writing and photography |
“Aesthetics-In Tongues” is a beautiful and powerful poem! It is the kind of poem that reminds one that poetry can serve, as Audre Lorde states, “as illumination” or as a “revelatory distillation of experience” from where true knowledge, and action can emerge (Lorde, Poetry Is Not a Luxury).
Unfortunately, my language limitations prevent me from understanding the second poem. Though I suspect it is as beautiful and as powerful as the first.