I Want Stones

By Manizha Shahi

I want stones as heavy as my trauma
To throw at the chests
Of the “enlightened” and the “dark minded” men
Who count my steps
To find proof of my promiscuity,
And at they eyes that have light
But seem unable to see me.

I want stones
To knock against the thick layer of pain
That covers me
And the mouths of Jirga men who punish the women in me with Bad*
And stand at the gates of the city
To audaciously stone me.

I want stones
To throw at the experiences of painful partings,
At the head of ignorance and centuries of imposed intimacy
On my immature body that they chose for marriage, giving birth, and death
And created a void between me and my body with intimacies I did not want.

I want stones,
To stone the taboos of this city, no matter how they are clothed
For I do not want my heart to be a grave for my silenced feelings.

I want stones
To break the walls and erase from the story of my creation
The rules of bent and obedient backs.

I have spent years like a silkworm.
Who has experienced the bottleneck of my life more than the air?
Passing is a characteristic I share with rain,
When I run through emptiness
And broken threads pile up inside me.

I want stones
To hit back at the status quo that feels like an hour glass
And to break my hands
For weaving the ropes of my own hanging
With proud silence and the myth of female virtue.

I want stones.
The borders of my life are narrower than the views of the radicals around me
And tall angles still vow to imprison me like spiders.
I want stones and to scream.

*Bad is the practice of marrying women and girls by force in order to settle familial and tribal disputes.

Read this piece in Persian here.