By Maria Azeem
Does the pomegranate bleed crimson from her lips,
or has Mimosa perished, her petals withered at the tips?
Did the dewdrops sear like acid on Lakshmi’s ravaged face—
a cruel baptism, beauty erased?
Or do Medusa’s tears trickle down like venom,
her hair, once spring’s white musk, now rotting in autumn?
When he spits on me, I ask myself:
Who am I, mirrored in these fractured tales?
Am I Mariam, the Afghan child-bride—
sold into silence, her youth chained to a Taliban’s pride,
where hope withers like poppies in drought?
Or the Indian widow, ash-clad, bound to her husband’s pyre,
as chinese daughters drown beneath the Yangtze’s hymn, unsung, unwired?
Or the Christian nun, defiled in the chapel’s hollow hush,
her wails swallowed by the cross—unseen, untouched?
And when he corrupts me, I ask myself:
Who am I, mirrored in these fractured tales?
Am I Anne Boleyn, a mother undone,
a queen, for birthing a daughter, condemned by her foes?
Or Elizabeth, her powerful daughter who rose—
a sovereign unshaken, yet fading in white lead’s throes?
Or Diana, her light eclipsed by a fallen tiara’s cage,
her breath stolen by the world’s voyeuristic gaze?
And when he defiles me, I ask myself:
Who am I, mirrored in these fractured tales?
Am I Nirbhaya, justice slipping through my fists?
Or Malala, my voice a storm they could not twist?
Am I the peacock, my Resplundant wings plucked and torn,
or the nightingale, silenced like the Marilyn’s song,
Drowned in pills, her voice forlorn?
And when I have drowned enough, I ask again:
Who am I, mirrored in these fractured tales?
Am I Rue Bennett, lost in euphoria's smoky trance,
chasing the ghost of an embrace?
Or am I Hamlet’s pretty Ophelia?
adrift in her watery shroud,
Mourning for a father long dead—
(a father who died the moment he raised his hand instead?)
Am I Stephen’s Carrie, trembling under Margaret’s prayers—
(a mother who locked me away in a closet,
whispering prayers as she raised the blade?)
or am I the sister she scorned, reborn in a bitter crusade?
Or am I, mirrored in their eyes, all of these—
a tarnished thing, bent to my knees?
A Lilith exiled, cursed and defiled,
my name erased, my voice reviled?
But I am Lilith.
No—I am not their tragedy, not their despair.
I am the reckoning, a storm in Eden’s air.
I am the heresy carved into holy decree,
Her name they cursed yet could never unsee.
I am the voice they could not erase,
Her fury and ire they can never displace.
I am Lilith—
the first woman who refused to kneel,
and the last woman who will ever yield.