You…
Good for nothing, light weighted
Changes direction according to the wind
It does not have a mind of its own
But I trusted it
To shelter and protect me
But alas…
I live in a windy city,
And it tends to be greedy
Gathering things that lie in its path,
Just like a colonizer
blowing across from one country
to another.
I pin together the sides
Of my fly away kameez/ dress
With nervous, embarrassed fingers
Pressing down, as if to close
a window or a swinging door
left unlocked on a windy day
letting black cats and dusty winds make their way.
Incontrollable weightless
It rises, it flashes
Waving like a red flag in front of a blind bull
Eyes on the Prize - You’re such a tease
I fumble carelessly
My hands desperately try
To hold down my dignity
Before it flies away,
Like a feather from a bird
That slowly descends to the floor
It is so light and so delicate.
It can be easily ripped off
and plucked away like a shriveled
dead fly away hair
I become a nervous wreck, picking at my scalp
One by one, wrapping it around my finger,
running my fingers through my hair
only to find bare skin, lying under dead hair.
Vulnerably the naked scalp peeks
through thin strands of hair
like a sheer curtain that hangs in my room
too afraid to draw it,
because I will have to put faces to the silhouettes,
And I rather know the world
as shadows and black outlines
At least that way
I won’t have to see the eyes
that pierce through me,
Unzipping my skin.