alive, yet erased
cloth denies identity
no voices allowed
an education
imagination and dreams
the Taliban takes
when nothing remains
strong women stand tall with a
quiver and arrows
a forgotten death
for the tyranny of this
land must be undone
Poetry | Stories | Photography
alive, yet erased
cloth denies identity
no voices allowed
an education
imagination and dreams
the Taliban takes
when nothing remains
strong women stand tall with a
quiver and arrows
a forgotten death
for the tyranny of this
land must be undone
rows of women accompany rows of vines
as generations before had done, they picked the pink crimson berries
too young to understand the status quo,
she imagined
a palette of pink, crimson, seal brown, and black pouring from the sky
as the women became formless, saturated colours
all the colours falling, all the women unseen, and slowly
the women, the vines, and the farm dissolved away to be replaced by blues, greens, yellows, and greys
unlike the other women, she left the farm when she was old enough
she was an outcast
no berries touched her fingers
yet she saw all the colours in a new light
felt the sea on her feet
the desert sand touches her face
and she became free