Stones of honor

Shabana Stanekzai

They threw stones at me
Their bodies less holy than my own.
They were lost in lust and anger.
They killed me for falling in love.

“Honorable” and rusty,
They threw stones at me
To hide the guilt they were feeling
For the nights they spent with hungry whores.

What gullible people!
They listened to a Mawlawi,
Whose eyes tear away a thousand Hijabs
And take the measurements of passerby girls,
And they stoned my sorrowful soul.

You, ones who sell your religion and honor,
Consider stoning your own ignorance and lust.
Ashamed and devoid of hate, the Angel of Death arrived
As I turned into yet another stone.

 

Read this poem in Persian here.