By Nazreen Fazal:
It didn’t hurt
When you bombed my courtyard
Charring the peepal tree
Leaving a blackened swing
On a wounded stub.
It didn’t hurt
When you scattered the roads
With severed heads and dismembered limbs
Colouring the streets red
Pumping the air with fear.
Then you decided
To hurt me, you’ll have to chain my thoughts
So you said I shouldn’t read
My eyes were for the home
And not for the ‘western dogs’ words
My mind was to stay confined,
Inside the four walls of ignorance
Too thick for resistance to penetrate
And make me think otherwise.
And then it hurt.
When you finally made me the unread,
Wilting midst the living dead.
[box bg=”#fdf78c” color=”#000″]This is dedicated to Malala Yousufzai and thousands of other brave girls like her who put us to shame for our callousness as they tread fearlessly against atrocities. [/box]