“Perfect pose, perfect hair,
O how my aunty sings, “A young lady should be disciplined”
My mother adds in, “It’ll be easier to get you married, if you listen to your dear Aunty”
I had to be perfect and I was,

I was like a doll and my mother and aunty played house with me
They picked my clothes, my hair and if I was ever to be questioned at dinner, they would answer for me.
I didn’t mind it not at all, I thought this was how every little girl lived
As a child, the adults answered for her, and as an adult, her husband answered for her.
It was all swell, me being my obedient self, unhappy as I was”

Then one day, tired of being a doll,
I jumped from the window,
Where friends old and new waited for me,
I played till the sun went down and when I returned home,
I was met with disappointed faces.

The next morning, my mother sent me packing to the palace, irritated with my shenanigans
I was scared at first but now I realize I came home to freedom,
I imagine the face of my mother, if she saw me now,
Instead of tea cups and dresses,
She would see that I would be with armor and sword

How strange is it, that in a world where people are repelled by the very essence of a storm,
I feel welcomed by lightning,
Why is it that my eleven year old classmates screamed at the sound of lightning?
Fear lingered in each scream of theirs yet my heart felt warm, welcomed.

It was as if I was the leader and the storm my armada,
It besieges me with its roaring and I summon to its call,
Two days ago, it did the same and while my neighbors children ran inside,
I walked outside to hear the lightning thrash, its rumble, a sweet melody to my soul.

I sometimes feel as if I have power inside me, a power that I cannot harvest.
I feel it singing to my heart in the saddest of times, repairing the cracks and edges,
And in the most joyous of occasions, bringing a joy that though great does not last for eternity
It seems to me that that power has a mind of its own and it knows when and where to appear but
That when the storm calls to it, it submissively appears.

It never answers to the sound or smell of rain, it always answers to the lightning,
It doesn’t answer to the bluest of sky but rather the ashiest-grayest sky.
It makes me wonder, if the power is fire, not human fire, but rather fire of the soul
And to the storm, I shall wait for your next call.

A child sits outside a hospital room,
All she can hear is absolute silence
And the world has gone absolutely cold and distance,
Death looming nearby and if you listen close enough you can hear its eerie call,
Its joy in knowing that one day it will claim you
And the satisfaction in the fact that it will have caused so much pain and heartache before your time,
Through a lover, through a father and through all those you love.

For some death will be a release, freedom at last, they will go willingly
And for others it will be a fight against death’s carte blanche.

For the living, some will cry on the bosoms of their mothers like the child who sits waiting for a mother
That will never return and for some it will be the joy of knowing that an enemy has died or that they can
Cash in now, the heartlessness in not caring that someone is mourning the soul of the dead.

What a strange world we live in, where people are happy knowing a life has ended, where people only
care about money. Is this the world we truly want? A life where we only care for money, is this what the
People are. I shall wonder till the end of time and a message for death, even in your clutches shall my
Heart sing and shall the fire in my soul decimate through every single pain you caused eternally.