09/05/2020
Punjab
A measurable distance separates our worlds.
What sets us apart is not
a space of air that cannot be breathed.
How would you ever
be able to understand?
When asked about my bracelets, I replied that I had
misplaced them. Who can blame a woman for her thoughtlessness?
Who can expect anything but her eagerness to hide her treasure
in a place she immediately forgets!
The child being seduced in the taxi
the bastard, the strain, the displaced sister's child. No one questioned
that I forgot where I had put my gold. The truth may happen
they had no idea. They hinted at the ways things used to take.
But no, they'll be right away
I guaranteed to be carefully searching. I just wouldn't stand
the servant girl getting more bang.
The child who had fallen asleep in the taxi had
come to remedy, and the event
fell into oblivion. Muwahhidun's sister
knows nothing in her quiet room.
On her birthday, the maid was allowed to go home to her mother. Our driver
took the motorcycle and she bounded it behind. We are
decent people, showing care for the staff; the maid dressed
in new clothes, I wave my bracelet goodbye and hope she does
not have to be beaten at home with her mom. On her 11th birthday.
Is a woman even a body? My clothes are delivered to the door
wrapped in discrete packages. We only deal with trusted merchants.
We smuggle sanitary ware from the West; we share a sisterhood
and scoop away the leftovers as we always did with
the bloody rags that previously provided insufficient protection.
What is a woman more than a gender? Created to embarrass.
She speaks like a creature from space. Moves
in your private domain as an
unidentifiable object.
Original identity lost irrevocable.
Speaks so that no one understands.
We are simply too different. A man's courage
and operations; he pretend to understand
and she wants to see him suspended
to discourage others from approaching her skinless s*x.
Publicly executed? No, death is a far too lenient punishment.
There is no fear in the hatred. There is no anger in my wrath. Nothing
can be forgiven, nothing can be forgotten.
A new crusade can kill all dragons, one may say, but not even a hero
can take two steps at a time.
©Ingela Tariq
