# data[].attributes.body
She let him in
her guard was let down
slight fear in the background
that was pushed deep down
he abused that trust
with his body and his words
forced her into an enclosure
she's never seen before
she didn't have a choice
she didn't have a say
but it is what it is
at the end of the day

# data[].attributes.headline
The Love Between Two That Shouldn't Love

# data[].attributes.subject
The Love Between Two That Shouldn't Love

# data[].attributes.body
Yamil M.
She and Tariq had done

was not sinful: that it had been natural,

good, beautiful, even inevitable.

With each trip,

she knew that she was

much closer to seeing Tariq again….

But, mostly he talked about you, hamshira.

You were his earliest memory…

He was glad you weren’t there.

He didn’t want you to see him like

that….

When I told him I was

going back to Kabul he told me to

find you. To tell you he was thinking

of you….

He missed you.

ATSS pg. 186-209

# data[].attributes.body
David B.
A stranger at first

Says he is Abdul Sharif

I knew not of why he is here

Until he mentioned Tariq

“...That’s where i met your friend,

Mohammad Tariq Walizai.”

She swallowed dry spit.

Shifted in her chair

“ ...A rocket hit lorry.

Probably a stray, but you never know..”

“..Your friend Mr.Walizai was the last.

He’d been there for almost three weeks..”

With these in mind i wondered

How badly was he injured?

Bad enough to be hospitalized?

She walked around frantically

Began to sweat, face heating up

ATSS pg.206-207

# data[].attributes.body
Page. 49-50
The Foggy Table
(Mariam’s Point of View)

Nana had just passed

And so much was whirling through my head just like a whirlwind

I then moved in with my father

I thought it would be a great idea at first at least

One day i was minding my business cuddled up in bed

Like a rabbit in its burrow

When i get called down to the dining table

They were talking about an older man than me

Comparing him to some kind of prince

Then they mentioned that i would be marrying this mysterious man

That's when i realized they are marrying off

Treating me like i was some kind of demimonde

I started breathing hard

My breath was hitting the table hard

It seemed as if it was a dark foggy night

But everytime the fog cleared up there i was

Looking back at myself through a fogged up mirror

# data[].attributes.body
Sabri Adem
Page 26-36
Bye Nana

“For my birthday... I know what I want”
“I want you to take me to your cinema”

“Maybe you can think of another present”
...” I’ll tell you what, I’ll send someone for you”

“No, I want you to take me.... and I want you to invite my brothers and sisters
It’s what I want”

“Tomorrow. At noon. At this very spot.”

Nana paced around the kolba
Then she mocked me

“I’ll die if you go....
Don’t leave me
Please, I’ll die if you go”

Mariam said nothing
She said she was going for a walk

The next spot,
Mariam wore a dress
And waited by the spot

She waited a while then made her way
To Herat
And then found herself in front of
Jalils house
She waited at his doorsteps
All night,
Despite the driver insisting that he take her home

After her night ending in upset
She decided to take the ride home
Thinking what she would say to Nana
Just to find out that Nana had already taken her last breath

# data[].attributes.body
pg.62-63
For most of the days

Mariam stayed in bed

Feeling adrift and forlorn

Sometimes she went downstairs to the kitchen

Ran her hands over the

Sticky

Grease-stained counter

She looked through the ill-fitting drawers

At the mismatched spoons and knives

These would-be-instruments

Of her new daily life

Making her feel

Uprooted

Displaced

An intruder on someone else’s life

# data[].attributes.body
Avery Copeland
pg-36

"Go back!"
He wasn't fast enough
She saw
Drooping branches
Weeping willows
"Don't look now!"
A gust of wind
A feeding frenzy
Suddenly,
Standing in front of her
"Turn around!"
Beneath the tree
Overturned
A straight-backed chair
A high branch
Nana's dangling.

# data[].attributes.body
Death

Sarah Hay

Rasheed didn’t notice her coming back into the room
Laila getting choked, until she was blue
Mariam swung as she said his name
She wanted him to see
He looked up
She hit him across the temple
He saw the blood on his fingertips
He saw a trace of self denial
Mariam raised the shovel high once again
In Rasheed’s eyes he saw murder for them both.
Mariam brought down the shovel
This time, with greater force.

# data[].attributes.body
Abortion

Pg 282-284

10 toes down

But you weren’t around

10 toes down

Disappointed in my actions

In a world full of distractions

You had nothing to do with it

But I still went through with it

I myself was a child

Not knowing of the treacherous things abound

When I found out you were real

I knew the life I live

Will be the life I give

To you my child

The mistakes I made

I’ll take it to my grave

The decision to abort was cut short

Don’t fear my child

Ten toes down

We’ll still be around

# data[].attributes.body
The three of them sat on the bed.
Outside,
rockets were zipping across the sky.
Some collapsed building
was puffing a mass of dust.
Laila knew,
there would be bodies to step through the next morning.
Concurrently,
she had an urge to run
through those streets.
She could barely contain her own
Happiness.
Tariq had only been gone for seventeen days.
Now,
they were going to Tariq.
For hours that night,
excitement robbed Laila of sleep.
She dreamed of being warm next to Tariq, on a ribbon of a beach,
under the blanket draped over their shoulders,
he wipes grains of sand from her
eyebrows.
She catches a flicker,
of the identical wedding band on his finger, identical to hers.

Chapter 26: Pages 188-190

# data[].attributes.body
All they ever knew was war

They learned to walk

With a milk bottle in one hand

And a gun in the other

Laila began to weep for her friend

Giti was dead

Blown to pieces

Just like her brothers

And that,

my young friends,

is the Afghan story,

one invader after another.

But we're like those walls up there.

Battered,

and nothing looks pretty to look at,

but still standing.

(Pgs 146, 177-179)

# data[].attributes.body
Hunger,

Cast a pall over their lives.

Stunningly,

It became the crux of existence.

Death, from starvation

Suddenly became a distinct possibility.

Some chose not to wait for it.

Bread was laced with poison.

Fed to children,

And then saved for oneself.

Ribs pushed through skin.

Calves thinned.

Complexions turned weak.

Hip bones poked through taut skin.
Sleep was fitful and sporadic.

Heads spun.

Ears rang all the time.

Then was remembered,

What one used to say about hunger.

Even the snake bitten man

Finds sleep,

But not the hungry.

Chapter 41: Pages 305-306

# data[].attributes.body
Vintage Info

Here in Kabul, the one thing the communists had

Done right was in the field of education. Here in Kabul, women

Taught at the universities, ran schools, held office in the government.

Here in Kabul, women have more rights than

they’ve ever had before. However, here in Kabul, women’s

Freedom is also one of the reasons people

Out there took arms in the first place. Here in Kabul, in the tribal areas,

Women were rarely seen on the street and only then in

Burqas and accompanied by men. Here in Kabul, men who lived

by tribal laws had rebelled against the communists. Here in Kabul, men saw

It as an insult that their daughters had to leave home! Here in Kabul, women

Have always had it hard.

Pg. 135-136

# data[].attributes.body
Of all earthly pleasures,
Laila’s favorite was lying next to Aziza,
Running her fingers over Aziza’s pleasing, soft skin,
over her dimples knuckles, the folds of fat,
Her baby’s face so close,
She could watch her pupils dilate and shrink
She whispered into her head about Tariq
The father who would always be a stranger
“He had the prettiest lashes, thick like yours,
he was perfect. Perfect like you are.”

Chapter 34 pg. 245

# data[].attributes.body
The sky above was an immaculate, spotless blue.

Below was the Bamiyan Valley carpeted by

lush farming fields.

Bordered by poplars and crisscrossed by streams

and irrigation ditches.

Rice paddies and barley fields draping the slopes.

Foothills, bare and dusty brown, and, beyond those,

As beyond everything else in Afghanistan,

The snowcapped Hindu Kush

Page 148

# data[].attributes.body
A cup of chai?

Clouds slide over the moon

And fireflies charting bright

Yellow marks.

Better to be deprived of food

Than of tea.

A cup of chai?

Halwa

Awfully good with chai.

One cup.

Gunfire cracked

In the hills

A looked passed between

Unguarded, knowing look.

Fleeting, wordless

Exchange

Not enemies any longer.

Three cups of chai

Now a nightly ritual.

Pages 250-251

# data[].attributes.body
By: Kaniya Griggs

The whistling,
The waiting.
Then the blast,
Blissfully elsewhere,
Followed by an expulsion
Of breath.
Amid cries and choking clouds of smoke;
Scrambling, a bare-handed frenzy of digging.
Pulling from the debris,
What remained of a sister, a brother, a grandchild.
Pg. 184

# data[].attributes.body
April 19, 2019

1st period

Cornball God

Corn on the cobb

Corn with without the stick

Corn in a puff

Little corn that you can flick

They sing when their plucked

Put them in a cage

Never let them walk away

Breath in breath out their dust

They crumbble at the hush sounds of dusk

In my body they flow through my disgestive

Oh how i love my puffs

They shield by night stand like armour

I eat and i breath the powder of the corn

I watch them be born every night

I watch them grow up into young adults

I watch them become my savior

# data[].attributes.body
By:Malachi Gilbert

The Driver talked in a muttering way,

He’s consoling tone as we drove away,

All the ride bounced up and down,

Tears of Grief, dropped down her eyes,

Deep shame to be so fooled,

Walking way to here,

And be left as a stray,

Warned as I was, and warned at peace,

Now disgraced out on the street.

Page #35 Second second paragraph after indent.