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.