'Fixing Your Heart' by Spanish Graffiti artist Skount (Raul Garcia Pereira) via Zoe in Wonderland
The following poem was originally published in Gawaahi.com, a website documenting stories of abuse and survival across Pakistan.
How could she have explained
the black agony of repulsion,
the morbid dialectic
of oppression, or the heavy, sinking feeling
like a hot stone expanding and scorching
the wrinkled flesh
of her weakened heart?
With her innocence crushed,
cringing with fear
like a drooping lily robbed of the sun,
she had tasted beyond her years,
the murky depths
of a malefic mind.
Nauseous and empty,
the girl-child hounded by his lust,
had felt her entire life condensed
in a single,
tremulous tear.
Zaina Anwar 2011
How could she have explained
the black agony of repulsion,
the morbid dialectic
of oppression, or the heavy, sinking feeling
like a hot stone expanding and scorching
the wrinkled flesh
of her weakened heart?
With her innocence crushed,
cringing with fear
like a drooping lily robbed of the sun,
she had tasted beyond her years,
the murky depths
of a malefic mind.
Nauseous and empty,
the girl-child hounded by his lust,
had felt her entire life condensed
in a single,
tremulous tear.
Zaina Anwar 2011
