I was incomplete,
Oh dears! You completed me,
Just for a word,
I agreed to be born,
As a woman!
Otherwise,
I would have prayed,
Kindly not to make,
Me a woman!
Your world,
Will not let the woman live,
You yourself would be watching,
In your world,
A woman,
Is a commodity of pleasure,
Sometimes she is stolen,
Sometimes robbed,
Not only in the markets,
Sold even at home!
I saw her trembling,
I saw her falling,
I saw her standing,
Again after falling,
I saw her burnt alive,
I saw her melting in acid,
I saw her stoned to death,
Publicly!
I saw her bricked,
Alive in a wall,
Even today blood,
Is bursting out of the earth,
From a place,
She was buried alive,
Guilty of being a woman,
Today before her birth,
The killers,
Force her to sleep,
In the valley of death,
What could I do?
I had to be completed,
Just to listen,
To this word,
I was born,
My children!
You call me Mom!
(In a western society one may not believe but all this happened and still happening in our society)
Akhtar Jawad
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-word-a-relationship-translation-of-khalida-bano-ali-s-poem-ek-lafz-ek-rishta/
