Poem: milkmade, mellow, and melting by Abish Qamar

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milkmade, mellow, and melting

the time her flesh is disclosed and callow,

the cathedral of unchaste billows the skies in a murderous haste.

she fails to pay heed for she is a dearth of wise.

her rationale yet underdeveloped and we all know better.

an unemployed machine only rusts about its cardinal piece,

and her womb is too precious to be left uneaten.

our sweet girl, our delicate angel, our naive doll.

how can we leave her to her own accord?

she ought to be confined to her chambers, where we consider befit

in her silks and velvets, in her sheets, unclad and pulsing.

she is milkmade, mellow, and melting.

so, she should act like it, and act graciously.

why dont she act like it? what devil breathes in her head?

this hysteria ought to be repressed, or better yet, bled

so, we skin her knees and spit on her body.

for if she is not what our scripts hold

she is no worthy to be holding life at all.

Abish Qamar is from Pakistan, currently an undergraduate student at Middle East Technical University, where she studies by daylight and writes in the stolen minutes and sleepless margins of it. Reading and writing have been her flesh and marrow for as far as her memory stretches. And when she's not bound by either, you’ll find her gathering rocks from the odd edges of the road.