The Day the Town Celebrated

Forthcoming in the book “My Body Lives Like a Threat” by FlowerSong Press
In response to honour-based killings

A stone thrown in a silent lake breaks its skin. Pain travels like ripples.
An outward fractal of grief continuously growing with every passing moment.

A single shot piercing through their bodies.
Piecing them with hate stringing the town.

Truth gaping through the open wound.
Lone gunfire shredding the sky into a million screams.

Only in this version love was not ostracised—
But burned and hanged in the Town square.

Hanged like pieces of meat for the devouring eyes circling them.
A prized possession for the cast that rules with an iron fist.

A mother runs half-naked through the empty street. Wailing.
Anger fracturing the thatched roofs.

Pain scratches like a pellicle dissolving in acid.
Its stench carried for generations.

Like folklore passed on from one babbling tongue to another.
How the little town gazed gaping mouths like a blind cave

The time when love was not ostracised. Cast and Creed were thrown aside
when that small town gathered to celebrate the honour killing.