Coercion

“I can break coercion into three pieces, ‏swallow it down three
times a day, ‏but I cannot weave it into poetry for you. ‏Yes, ‏coercion
is a bitter meal, ‏served morning, noon, and night ‏to girls who closed
their eyes at dusk ‏and never saw another dawn. ‏Night clung to life,
‏to dreams, ‏to the scent of bread that never rose. ‏Coercion is not
poetry. ‏I cannot fold it into a page, ‏crumple it, ‏cast it away. ‏It
looms larger than me, ‏larger than ‏Band-e Amir ‏Goharshad’s gardens
‏the vineyards drunk on forgotten sun. ‏Coercion is a nightmare,
‏stitched to the unfinished dreams of our daughters. ‏It does not
divide, ‏it multiplies, ‏seeps into all things. ‏It is vaster than a
homeland ‏and has devoured time itself. ‏No one speaks its name. ‏Even
the BBC would rather whisper ‏of Johnny Depp’s broken—or unbroken—finger
‏than murmur the ruin of a girl’s forsaken dream. ‏But this is not news.
‏It is coercion, ‏spreading like plague, ‏dragging us back to a century
‏where no one even lifts a brow ‏for the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.”