They told me — a woman’s hunger should be poetic, not physical. Desire should be folded into metaphors and hidden in kitchen drawers behind cumin and shame.
But my lips do not write verses to please you. They burn with wanting— not your approval, but my own arrival into a body that I refuse to apologize for.
You called me dangerous because I asked for more than survival.
You called me broken because I moaned without fear and dared to say what women were only allowed to whisper into pillows after the lights went out.
I am not the fire that ruined your perfect home. I am the fire you lit and ran from.
I touched myself and did not shatter. I confessed to desire and did not turn to stone. I spoke of my body as mine— and that made your temples tremble.
You said, “This is why women are left.” “This is why marriages die.” “This is why daughters should be quiet.” “This is why God gave shame to Eve.” And I replied— “No. This is why women are reborn.”
Your disaster is not my doing. It is your brittle masculinity cracking under the weight of a woman who refuses to be less.
I lit a lamp inside me, and you called it a wildfire. But don’t mistake my flame for your ruin. I burn to become — not to destroy.
This poem was born in a quiet rebellion. A rebellion against the idea that a woman’s desire is dangerous, that her longing is shameful, that her softness must be hidden to be respected.
I wrote this for the girl who simply wanted to love — with her heart, her body, her truth — and was told she was too much.
Every time she expressed her wanting, they made it a crisis. Every time she opened her arms, they closed the door.
This poem is her fire, her clarity. It says: Desire is not a sin. It is not a storm to fear. It is a song — and I will sing it without apology.
Because my desire is not your disaster. It is my birthright.