Today, at 11 A.M., Afreen
finally succumbed to the bites, blows and burns caused by her father. The
report said that she suffered multiple convulsions and ultimately died of
cardiac arrest. Three months was the duration of the life she lived or
let's say suffered. She was brought to the hospital three days ago with burn
marks and multiple dislocations in her neck. I'm looking at an old clip which
shows her delicate and small structure tubed all over, her chest rapidly rising
and falling, while she is unconscious, lying on a hospital bed about twenty
times her size. Her mother has put her head near her daughter's legs. She
hasn't left. I had almost begun to pray for her recovery, when I realized
that the clip is from yesterday. I pull myself back to reality, to today,
where she is dead.
I don't want to see it.
Its so painful. Yet I see it. "Baby
Afreen is no more". The headline goes on & on & on... I
feel a hole growing inside my guts. I helplessly fight my brain, and try
not to imagine scenes of her and her father. She was his daughter. An
incarnation of his, maybe a female, but his continuation nevertheless.
I am angry , I am helpless, I
am burning & I'm welling up. Fictitious visions of a beautiful life
that Afreen could have lived, torment me beyond tolerance.
Hello world, my name was
Afreen,
I was born to love and
hatred akin
I did not know pain,
But then I was bit and
beaten
I did not know smile
I could never do it for a
while
Life started and ended
before I breathed
Like some numbness it prevailed
Faint voices of my mother
Crying to fight my torture
The man who brought me
here
Was the same who banished
me forever
I was created by him
Somehow I never got to see
him
His hands were all so
unkind
How could he kill his daughter's body
& mind
They hated me from the day
I cried
They hated me for the body
I carried
I could not even know why I
was born
Some evil in some past I
must've done
I was greeted with frowns,
They thought I would let
them drown,
Never gave me a chance
Never wanted me to keep
balance
I could not know your Earth
Its green and its past
I could not make friends
I wasn't afforded that much
sense
I will know not what is a
hug
A pleasure I was supposed
to get a lot
I will know not the birds,
the seas, the skies,
My world started and ended
with cries
I could not kiss my mother
My lips were shut forever
Before my hair could learn
to curl
They were dragged to
satiate some call
Teeth were sunk in
When kisses were to be left
on my skin
I was welcomed by pain
Unfair ! I underwent it in
vain
It all became too much
One day to a ward I was
rushed
Tubes galore were slided
Though silently I chided
My mother sat there looking
& praying
She often stopped to fancy
me playing
I knew my mother's pain
She too swallowed it in
vain
I did't even know how to
pray,
The hands that hated me
night and day ,
Were the ones
that ought to have taught ,
A beam of mercy desperately
I sought
My mother, I worried what
would happen to her
I knew I was nearing to say
'adieu' & come back never
Ever believing, ever hoping
to revive and take me back
I'm so sorry ! I wish we
could have run more than this small track
I had to go, the angels
could wait no more,
I wish I could tell my
mother, its a better place that I'm travelling for
God must know what he does
and what he says,
I've heard He works in
mysterious ways
My body was broken in
places
A new life, Yet counted
were my days
But my heart broke then
When the healers rushed in
They must have noticed I
was leaving
Broke mid way my mother's
praying
She howled and held and
kissed and prayed
She begged, I know not who,
but onto her prayers she held
I was growing cold, she
must have known
She held me close with her
tears rolling down
Those arms where up I had woken
Now held me again when I
was being taken
Then...it snapped, that
chord that tied
Me and her, My life was
over, in her arms I died.
- Afreen