This is for all the girls and the women who are struggling to fit into the expectations, definitions and labels that have been created for them. Keep speaking, keep striving, keep moving until you are free.
They told me that I should slow down
To put my roots into my soil
But when I did
When I trusted the hands that would
Nurture those tendrils, tender fragile
They instead beat them down
Crushed and strangled them in the ground
Burnt their life seeking ends
And everytime that they grew
When they reached for something new
They cut them down
Again and again they continued
All my tomorrows were carved out to be
Bleak as the ashen soil that held
My soles, my skin, my soul, my sins
Fusing them for the world and me
They were one, coalesced
That none could sunder
Save the keepers of the roots
And God himself
Resurrected in their image to suit
Him and him and Him and them
In a conspiracy of guilt and hell
So I uprooted myself
And I found someplace else
I slowed down and felt the ground
The soil was light, loamy brown
I sat down, took off my shoes
I dug in my soles, my soul, my whole
And that is when I found my roots.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 