Screaming, yelling 

Stop please stop,

Don’t hurt her no more 

She wasn’t built for it. Her body can’t handle it, 

Or maybe it can, at least that’s what she thinks now.

Just because a bone gets stronger after you break it, doesn’t mean it has to,

The bone does get stronger, but it’s not the same.

She loves organizing things, as if somehow it will tidy up her thoughts.

She said “I can’t do this anymore” in a voice that sounds more like mine then hers

She puts on her smile everyday like she just showered with rose petals instead of cold water to numb the pain

Like she was given kisses instead of blows.

Smiling like she was the one who was doing the kicking,

Like there wasn’t just a broken table, a broken vase, a broken jaw, a broken mind.

A broken person, too many broken things… but she loves organizing.

Taking all of those little broken pieces, putting them together, trying to make sense of things.

Maybe every woman’s body was only made to be torn and destroyed by a man’s hand.

A women’s reputation is everything.

God does not punish our parents for the acts of their sons but for the acts of their daughters.

It’s like أَلَّا تَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌ وِزْرَ أُخْرَى (Allataziruwaziratunwizraokhra)* doesn’t exist.

We might have been buried alive under the dirt in the jahiliyyah time**, but now we are buried under the weight of society, we are buried under the burden of being a female in a society that will never truly know the meaning of Justice, or the word “no” being uttered by a female.

All they can hear or all they want to hear is “I’m sorry” “I won’t do that again” “yes I was wrong” “it was my fault”

But how can we keep apologizing for being alive?

we all are made of cracks, of broken bones, of broken tables, of broken vases, of broken jaws,of broken smiles, of all the submissiveness that was passed on to us from our mothers, grandmothers, and the ones before them, and the ones before them, and the ones before them, it’s never ending.

Females they give birth to life, but they truly… never… really… know the meaning of living.

 

*أَلَّا تَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌ وِزْرَ أُخْرَى (Allataziruwaziratunwizraokhra): none shall carry the Burden of Any Other on the Day of Resurrection. Meaning, every soul shall carry its own injustices, whether disbelief or sin, and none else shall carry its burden of sin, as Allah states.

** jahiliyyah time: is an Islamic concept referring to the period of time and state of affairs in Arabia before the advent of Islam. It is often translated as the “Age of Ignorance”.

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Link to the Italian translation