To Nora

In a country where marriage

is a commodity being sold,

like exported goods

and appraised gold.

When all of the men you have ever bared yourself to have succumbed to pawning feelings.

In exchange of convenience and familial approval.

The sadness hangs like unpulled church bells. The desert heat seemed unfelt by your clammy skin.

(The leaves outside the window rustled as if whispering back your unrealised dreams.)

You sighed and went on saying

between the distance of you and him,

in the silence and detachment.

you found your ticket back to your comfort place in prescribed pills.

For a moment, I am convinced

that this world was designed to favor Joseph and not Mary.

I wanted to blanket you

from this scythe wind

to shield your purple heart

to armor you from this men-molded mortar

to tell you to never fit

our rebellious bones

into the norms of patriarchs.

(You reached out for the rays of the sun like they were raindrops falling on your palms.)

if I tell you, the fortress

of our fathers has fallen,

will you laugh again, love?

Oh, please!

Laugh.

Let these men wonder

about the joy of being a woman —

that even if they try

and make us cry

our once hushed lips would ne——ver shape their names.