It is the heart that pushes the ink so I must
Otherwise what’s to write, she just went from dust to dust…
It was her death that brought her the refuge, her life only ravaged
It was her motionless silence that ended the pain, her wails only salvaged
It was her faith that she was predated, crucified, sacrificed for unspeakably
It was her blood that stains the mountains that are sunk in shame immutably
It was beyond and yet so intrinsically basic to the age of post empathy
It wasn’t just hers or his; it was the cause of each and everyone’s apathy
It can be diluted to an act of transgressing intent or unstinted fate
It can never be excused as manifest patriarchy or communal hate
It is a not just a tragedy of beautiful innocence being butchered to smithereens
It must rouse from subterranean to the cosmos, a conflagration for the calmer greens
When the security of animals strangles the modesty of an 8-year-old child
The house succumbs and dilapidates to its own rotting and crumbling pride
It was her sacrifice at the altar of satanic hate and diabolic lust
Otherwise what’s to write, she just went from dust to dust
It was her vivified existence that the fiends thought they could outrage
It was her dormant death that demon seeds thought they could disparage
It was all human, the rise of infernal desires and sordid designs that were spun
It was not just one in many, lest we fail again, it was the ubiquity in just one
It wasn’t just a horror tale that cannot let the awoken sleep at night
It is the deathly lullaby that harbours darkness inside the light
It is not a time of tears, voices and candles for the show beckoning
It is either just another victim for the conscience or the moment of reckoning
It is a girl today or a woman tomorrow that falls to a man’s muscles
It is an impervious shield that gets thicker for the one who hustles
When justice turns blind and malice roams the spaces with undaunted trail
When the weakest of virtue rejoice the nectar of power in the Holy Grail
It was her muted ordeal that rips my core through the crust
Otherwise what’s to write, she just went from dust to dust
It is not a plane to disentomb the divided roots and thunderous faultlines
It is an intersection to secure the right to dignity every living pulse enjoins
As all my human fractions seek the guilty blood within a friable cage
I burn with an emptiness of inevitable incompleteness that festers with rage
The sentient flood of revulsion mustn’t be limited to Twitter feeds and online trends
While the devious and lumpen try to recreate the horror again and again
It is not a headline, not a tag not a share not a post on your Facebook wall
It is the opportunity to break walls and join courage for a just and deafening call
It is not time to launch slogan for slogan or throw punches or pen an ordeal outward
It is a cause to engender a cataclysm of Reformation not of the world but inward
It is for the conscience to meet the blood and stir a storm of Inquisition
It is for the Asifa in you to rise to the surface and disinter the dereliction
It is her story that never knew the end that I must
Otherwise what’s to write, she just went from dust to dust
Burn the defilers at the stake of unachievable redemption for bleeding justice
Her nightmare still needs the closure of guillotine and not just hope for hospice
Look in the billions of open eyes and assure the sanctity of honour, smiles and play
As we holler for justice for the closed pair that is secured beneath six feet of clay
Tears run dry, remorse is empty, my compassion is frazzled and my instincts tire
As sands of time always conspire to obfuscate the memory of her mire
As the land gets costlier, the water darker, the avarice hungrier and the crown higher
The tongue has to get sharper, the pen mightier, the fire brighter and the voices louder
Life hopes between the body and the shadow, between the corpse and the grain
Hope lives between the fall and the fallen, between the wound and the pain
Breath survives between the birth and the burial, between the tried and the trial
Survival breathes between the beginning and the end, between the poison and the vial
It wasn’t a single story of a single daughter; it is an iron curtain that refuses rust
Otherwise there’s nothing to write, she just went from dust to dust
I do not claim oblivion, blameless escape to the haven of distance and ineloquent disgust
I write, I scream, I beg, I mourn, I pray for her final rest as she went from dust to dust…