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Haikus to
​Celebrate Womxn

Alison Karki, Grade 12
UWC-USA

Published in Skipping Stones Inc. October-December 2020 Issue (2020 Youth Honors Award Winner)
To celebrate womxn
wind plays with her hair
she laughs, embracing the thrill;
a brief moment, free.
--liberation
 
i stand up again,
grit my teeth and take deep breaths--
for i am woman.
--resilience
 
through my dark, brown eyes,
lashes collecting my tears.
i notice your strength.
--from one girl to another
 
painted “pink” for war?
“delicate” hands clenched and raised--
don’t worry, we bite.
--do not downplay our strength

My Mother’s Tongue
My mother swallowed
her mother’s tongue.
 
Their tongues are
razor-sharp
deadly
poisonous--
hissing at the generation of men that have disrespected them.
 
But their tongues are the damp soil
needed for their delicate words to germinate and grow.
 
Their cracked tongues jab and sting like swarms of honey bees,
but only the sharpest tongues
can produce the sweetest words
that ooze out and flow like warm honey.
 
I recite their precious words;
my mouth being the furnace
that transforms my tongue into piercing shards of broken pottery
and my words being the glue that mends the pieces back together.
 
And every time I think I have lost my tongue
given to me by my mother (and my mother’s mother),
the sharp stinging resurfaces--
and their words pour out of me again.

taken seriously
maybe if i masked my melanin with         whiteness--
painted over the chocolate soil of my land and replaced it with pale sand--
maybe then i could be taken         seriously.
 
maybe if i masked my femininity with manliness and “machismo”--
concealed my so-called vulnerability with erupted         aggression
and
dissolved my womanly curves        and        bouncy breasts           and
drenched myself in toxic                 masculinity
 
maybe then i could be taken         seriously.
 
i just wish         for once
i could be taken                 seriously.
i wish                  i wish                 i wish

i am made of revolution
i am made of revolution.

my father taught me strength
my mother taught me affection
my friends taught me vulnerability
life taught me execution

lines of poetry flow every time i exhale
passion in every cry

light dims in my eyes every time
my brothers and sisters die

my ancestors had calluses
    (my great-grandfather had unhealing scars
    & 
my grandfather had permanent cracks in their skin)
so that my skin could be shea-butter smooth

but i will continue to work hard
because i want to see those who come after me--
my daughters & sons & children--
win.

i want to watch the entire system burn down
and i want the world to hear the sound.
Picture
Picture

                                                     Guest Writer - UWC-USA

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