Our land is a graveyard.
The soil under my home
holds the bones
of many unknown
They might’ve been a father,
a sister or a friend
to people who were
laid to rest,
maybe even before them.
I will never know their names.
Was one a merchant?
Was another a slave?
Did they die
or were they killed?
A thousand questions
and none the same
The wind whistles at night.
Or did I perhaps mishear?
Was that-, could it be
the distant scream
of a ghost girl
A shadow of a past
I would never
know of or hear.
A history buried under
the tales of heroes
and foes who incited fear.
I wonder if right below me,
is buried, a girl of eighteen
Did she too love poetry?
More to write than to read.
Do we share the same name?
Did she also wish once
to be in her current state?
Was her death natural
or was she slain?
Perhaps it was a young man
who died for his betrothed..,
or a father who welcomed death
so that his family need not.
I wonder of the bones
that lie beneath.
Who they were
and how they’d been.
Was their life painful?
Were they ever
not at peace?
Did they know of the truth
when they had lived?
or did it only dawn on them
when death was at their lips?
Aaysha Natasha
@4ayisha
