By Tarannum Ahmed

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Let me tell you my story, 

I am a musician forced to vow in silence (and yet)

Every now and then

When the soundlessness becomes deafening

I imagine onlookers applauding at my genius

I picture them mouthing the words to my songs 

To sway in my ensemble’s rhythm 

Looking past my veilless head,

Into endless melody

Painfully you know, I am but quiet

The thorns of black roses stabbing the insides of my throat  

Raw, unceasing, suffocating

When push comes to shove-

I whisper, wail even 

But I fail to roar

Struggling to breathe

The moment I force air out of my lungs,

My own assembly labels me crude

Twisting and turning my neck;

They pin me against cage bars 

Thrusting my breasts 

To hold me down in aphonia

You see, 

My tyrants rejoice at my humiliation 

My bareness 

My voicelessness 

The sadistic voices make on occasion of my imprisonment 

Paint me to be an anarchist

My songs boil down to mere notes carved on steel

My genius stripped down to oblivion (much like myself),

Cascades to insubstantiality.