Saima Afreen
Revenge
She wasn’t allowed to touch the roses they said she was the dark blood of profanity. The sweet sap of Satan. She smiled, opened her wings—very white—the colour of Eve’s face when she found herself beside Adam.
She looked up the treetops, took all the birds, gathered them on her knuckles and let them fly inside her sonnets. A yellow canary sat on the proud kaaf, while blue-green humming birds chose the zers below the consonants like seaweed floating under the bottom of boats.
The sparrows chose aleph—the proud minaret—the significance of The One. She chiselled the birds into words, knowing that we are free inside our bodies the way these birds fly inside letters. She nails her skin to their wings mocking Eden to show what it threw and insulted can both walk and fly.
She is the dark blood
She is the Felony
She is what Eve couldn’t be