But what does it mean
as a woman
to be a woman
The burden of reaping
respect
with every action
and taking the fall
when her body is used against her
But what does it mean
as a man
to be a woman
The role of keeping
secondary significance
with every hushed ambition
and mending men’s faults when they are no longer
male responsibility
But what does it mean
as a person
to be a woman?
I know my agency is in everyone else’s hands.
I know I am at the mercy of the lies
my mother was fed. She was taught brutally,
her duty is to feed her child
again
and
again
and
again --
until it is dead.
Now I carry the ancestral burden
a generational hurdle. And
I reap what I can with the seeds I was given.
I reap what I can
from this
raped
land.
Deya Nurani is a high school student based in the US.