What Colour is Honour?

[Guest guest]

In Turkey, the question is how to avoid Honour Killing,

the answer is to commit honour suicide,

some girl-child barely out of the blush and first breath of becoming woman,

fall into disgrace for the oddest of reasons,

short skirts, or having

been raped by stranger or relative,

or stealing an innocent glance at a young boy,

some are strangled and shot,

the messages of doom are texted in the glare of high tech cell phones that

take pictures and connect to the material world

but these young women

are stoned to death,

and that world belongs to another time, and place,

some are buried alive,

and I imagine wearing that dark and heavy veil,

that heaviness has been well-worn for quite some time,

 

I imagine,

there by the grace of God, go I,

I remember being sent home

by the skirt police in high school,

I remember falling to my knees enough

times throughout my life and with the veil of tears

I have shed for myself I

wash the world clean.

 

 

Ana

 

7/17/07