• A Female Cry
      Dareen Tatour

      O my life, nestled in the heart of paper
      Look here:
      Our sorrows have slammed shut the door of hope

      Their ghosts embracing our color
      Until we appeared like them
      The ink in poems of worry.

      Look at them, how they sink their teeth
      In my side
      Wolfing down my blossoms and sweet scents.

      They killed my spring in its entirety
      Stole my very life from the world
      Unleashed the season of sleeplessness.

      O my life, I have grown tired.
      Let me depart to live out my life
      Secluded forever in the silence of my land
      Let me, for I cannot overpower them
      Charged as they are by rays of daylight and twilight alike

      My chains won’t be broken by you, O Fate,
      While the trees of my oppression go unwatered by hope
      I will go on living by withdrawing inwards
      I feed off the fires of time, and burn up
      So long as I am imprisoned by silence
      So long as I am occupied by sadness.

      How long have I lived on the ground of hope
      Beset by the flowers of life
      I water them from the spring of struggle
      Raise them up through the resolve of youth
      I play… sing for existence itself,
      Look forward to the birth of peace.

      I reveal every light with my eyes
      Yet these sorrows, O life of mine,
      Follow me like my own name in the heart of this place
      Like echoes.

      O my silent letters in the drowning sea:
      Let me struggle on in nothingness
      Alone with these sorrows, with tears of regret
      I will always be inhabited by pain
      As long as I accept being silenced.

      O my dream, kidnapped from my younger years
      Silence has ravaged us
      Our tears have become a sea
      Our patience has bored of us
      Together, we rise up for sure
      Whatever it was we wanted to be.

      So let’s go
      Raise up a cry
      In the face of those shadowy ghosts.
      For how long, O fire within,
      Will you scorch my breast with tears?
      And how long, O scream,
      Will you remain in the hearts of women!

      #Dareen_Tatour #Palestine #poésie #femme #prison