The Borders of Peril

You've not known pain unless you've felt
Involuntarily spasms pass through your back bone,
Shaking you right to the core.

You have not known pain unless you've lost a limb or two,
And ached in fire of sheer loss.

You have not known pain unless you've tossed around night after night,
Not sleeping a wink, wondering 

If a thought about you have passed someone's mind.

You have not known pain unless you have been cornered by men,
Worse than stray dogs, helpless and hopeless in the face of fate.

You have not known pain, unless you've experience something
As beautiful as childbirth,
And not as worse as the catastrophe of losing one.

You have not known pain unless you've basked in the relief of an escape,
Whether it comes from running away, or a stinging blade.

You have not known pain unless you have been forced to see,
Your children going to bed
On an empty stomach, night after night.

Meaningless, your pain is not, however may it come.
Don't let me define your pain for you.

Don't let anyone set the borders for your peril. 

You've known it all as it struck you from behind

Or ripped at you head first, and beaten you raw.

-Momina.

Broken Conscience

The air is hot, stale and nonexistent. Seems like every breath you draw in, is a struggle, a mouthful of nothing but emptiness and fragments of polluted oxygen. Overhead the fan whirs in aimless lazy circles even though it is set to maximum speed. It does nothing to help the suffocating atmosphere as it lethargically stirs up the thick warm air. The sun seems to filter right through the thick dusty curtains that stand still and undisturbed, heavy as if with longing and despair. A musky smell fills the room, saturated with sweat, fear and loss.

A limp hand falls off the edge of the rickety bed, every time someone turns in it it creaks as if taking its last breath. The hand hangs there, the fingers opening and closing ever so slowly, clutching through the thin air. The pillow is a chaos of thick brown hair, combed away from the face and neck, matted with sweat that also glistens on the face and leaves dark patches on the clothes that cling to the body. The chest rises and falls, struggling for breath through excruciating pain. The air wheezes in and out in a futile attempt to nourish the body.

She stands in the doorway; eyes weary and body slump, her eyes fixated on the figure in the bed and the constant whisper of a prayer on her dry chapped lips. Her hands hang by her side in a defeated gesture; as if there's nothing more she can do with them, her legs shaking ever so slightly. As the light recedes from the room, the room doesn't cool.

In the early hours of the morning she turns, averting her eyes from the bed, her feet shuffle towards another door, not so far away, which leads her outside. Her tread is slow and painful, as she walks through empty roads. Eventually her feet give away and she drops down on the pavement, on an unfamiliar. Overhead, the clouds rumble as if with anger, making the little light at this hour look rather eerie and unusual. Her eyes scan the empty roads, the stationary cars and the dark houses, suspending her into her worst fears.

The sound and the dampness brings her back, the rain falls slowly at first. The heat rises from the hot road, pushing its way up, escaping in the tiny puffs of dust that rise as drops pelt down harder. It comes down hard, so hard that it burns her. It feels as though it will cause depressions and groves in her paper thin skin. It hurls down at her as if it were the sentiments that she's lived through, as if it’s the abuse and loss she's suffered through life. It breaks her down bit by bit, cracking the shell, bruising her flesh, her existence, her conscience.

-Momina.