Amrin Khalil

Only trying to hold me down

I wish it was but it wasn’t easy

To inherit a whole legacy

Is my spine strong enough to carry

Everything you raised to your good name

Am I what your sacrifices run into until they run out?

I was too soft for this circus, it broke me and left a rock

You were too soft for this circus, it broke you and left a seed

I’m hanging on to your branches, my knuckles white

I didn’t know how high up I’d go following your steps

They’d say he was salt of the earth

And I was a matchstick in your hand made forest

All he had to do was raise a daughter not a dynamite

Small girl with her small head making big waves.

My name the tarnish of yours

He was seeking service and she was seeking pleasure

They already say it anyway.

There’s claw marks all over my body

My climb was hard, I’m sorry

I fought tooth and nail

I never sharpened your name into a throwing star

They’re laughing at me

What a dumb little girl

Too proud to claim her roots

But if I had they’d say I got it all served on a silver platter

You warned me, I know

This was my own doing

Our doomed fates intertwined long before I made my choice

I’m afraid to look down

Should I just keep climbing?

You left me everything, what if I crash on the cushion you made for yourself to fall on?

They’d say look at all these holes

He let that senseless girl make on his shields

She left him fence less

Defence less.

Your name is the heaviest thing I carried

Clutched on to it

Close to my chest

All the hands that tried to snatch it - bitten

I slipped a couple of times

But it was all in the dark

Can we forgive what happens at night fall

And look at everything I gathered in the day light ?

I was just a little girl

It was such a big world.

I hope you remember

I was never a big talking

Risk taking

Time wasting

Free loading

Waste of space.

When these

Back talking

Short cutting

Ever plodding

Big dreaming

Envious little show offs

Make me one of them

Will you tell them I worked to make myself worthy of my dreams?

That I paid my dues to all my smaller dreams before I took this leap?

My feet are calloused

You can see bone from all the bullets I took

I can see bone from all the bullets you took to raise me

Your feet are calloused

I dreamed upside down and you told me to keep dreaming

Now all my destinies are on the other side of the world

And you tell me to go fulfill them

“Go open the gates for everyone behind you”

It feels like a mountain on my chest

But I think I’m ready to climb now.

This city built you to raise me

This city built me to ruin me

I wish this upon no one but myself

You wished it upon no one and said no but I was in love

As absurd as it sounds

I am still in love

And I know darn well you are too

I am knee deep in the mistake I made at 17 because of the mistake you made at 17

At least I made the same mistakes as you

So you can find mercy for me in your heart

And maybe a little pride

Maybe they’d say

Look at her

Just like the honourable man who raised her

He taught her well

Maybe they’d say

She looks just like him

All my life all I prayed for and dreamed for was to become you.

My eyes are yet to fall upon anything greater.

Pretty girls have their doors opened for them, it was fine when it was just car doors and house doors and restaurant doors but it hurt when it turned into doors that led to rooms of opportunity and power. Because all those years of building brain and brawn had to lead to some kind of pinnacle right? Too much time and too much effort was already put in to not see it through. Because boys can afford to be good at things but girls had to be exceptional in order for their households to not swallow them whole. Some of them did deserve it though while some of their calibres did not even reach my ankles, my petty arrows aimed at their fair and lovely foreheads for a long time until I realised power is not in the hands of who entered the room, it is in the hands of the one holding the door open.

Beauty and the chokehold it has. A man’s lustful eyes could never see the tricks it plays to get what it wants. My envy became respect. They played well with the cards in their hands, didn’t they? Who is to say, if I were dealt the hand, I wouldn’t do the same?

I hate the smell of artificial jasmine, I was born in a country that bred authentic ones. Pitiful how all the Kings men and all the Kings horses could not bottle one petal of one flower for their Queen. So she grew herself an entire garden. Then you look at the dirt under her nails with disgust? Can you imagine women being mocked and ridiculed for not being woman enough? Ironic.

My wise years wasted calculating.

I'm scared of becoming a tired earthquake/ A sea-motionless/ How long can I keep roaring when everyone else gets to sing?