The soul's bread is freedom

For life is more

Than just life

The invisible whip

On the heart of a prisoner without

Barbed wire

Encircles her skies

And the streams of his mind

To poison them with

Indelible scars

Rays of a humiliated sun

The nightingale in her cage

Dreamt of a messianic lover

as she was  forced to deliver herself

Unto the night

And this simile tells you

That a bird

Is not

Just a bird

And its song not just a song

Burning acid

And a body with a slit throat

Like ploughs on a mined field

Cut into the dark

And explode

Wounds smouldering in utmost silence

Are you and I, hidden

Deep within ourselves

Sometimes this pain appears in the shape

Of a fire that kills us

And sometimes

In the shape of a veil that refuses to reveal

What it covers---

Two histories' dark hijab

Truth spoken in trance prayers

And double-faced devotion

Words of an introverted language

Murderer and victim entangled

In an inseparable

Embrace

Almost

One soul

Composed of two

Or two reflecting one

Both suffering

But each

For a different reason

Both captives

But each

In a different prison

Each unaware of each

My love remained in purdah

And my heart's garden grew red poppy

And yellow oleander

All around me

The moon was ablaze

Bombs and bleeding knives under my pillow

Are the subcutaneous nightmares

Of this world's unpeaceful sleep

Restless like the ghostly soul

Of a lover abandoned by fate

Your eyes said:

This world is a fortress

And birds only survive

Who can fly without boundaries

Sheherezade responded:

I am the nightingale.

This is my cage.

And we dare not hope

It could open