In my 18 years of life I haven’t seen bones tougher and flesh more elastic than my mother’s
Hours of excruciating agony it takes for life to begin
Sliced open, torn apart, to bring you here as one
Motherhood
I grew up in small houses, nothing more than one dilapidated room at one point
But it was my mother who held the walls together each time
Perhaps you have eight walls, sixteen walls, twenty-four walls,
The same two arms wrap around the edges
Hush, baby, go to sleep
Glorifying abuse and exploitation is far from my intent here
So here I am, not penning down a romance out of my mother’s – your mother’s struggle
But merely thinking to myself, how is human even capable of such acts of endurance
And how can we ever, oh ever return them
By Amna Waqar