Burka
BURKA
Being housed daily in a cage of cloth
Heavy and burdensome I yearn to be free
As a person in a straitjacket I scream
My yoke is colored black
It is hot inside my burka yet there are voices in my family
Unable to speak out to help me remove this abomination
but there would be a heavy price to pay to speak out
so nobody says anything but we are all screaming inside
We scream inside our skulls
So nobody will hear our lament
To keep our children safe
Even though we know they are in bondage
The little boys and girls of our Afghan family
are kept ignorant of the evil that surrounds us
soon enough they will find out
and come to know our culture’s plight
We have gotten used to it having no recourse
We teach our girls how to put it on
To look as good as they can
Because appearances are important
But that is a western thing not Afghan
Right now with the failure of the United States military
We were left holding the bag
As the old American says
It was our one chance to escape the coming oppression
but we were left at the airport
chancing an ungodly approaching aftermath
All Afghans dread the coming of the night
But time will tell
We will be here probably in blood
Cursing the darkness
And dreaming what it could have been
If we Afghans had only stood our ground.
Copyright © Norberto Franco Cisneros | Year Posted 2022
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