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.

April 19, 2019

1st period

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

 

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

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

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

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 

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

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)

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

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

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 

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

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