The Woman Who Never Sleeps

In every dream, she is watching.

Behind the curtain of the meat shop.
On rooftops where girls press their chests
into thin cotton under a shy moon.
By the well where your cousin’s body was found,
her mouth full of pondweed and gossip.

She never blinks.
She is not jinn.
Not saint.
She is the memory that knows your skin
better than you do.

She never sleeps
because her daughters do.
Because rest is a luxury not built for brown bodies.
Because every time she tried,
a man opened the door.

When she speaks, it sounds like silver bangles
dragged across a prayer mat.

She told me once:
“I watched your mother die
while making rotis.
She put ghee on one,
folded it, and fell.”

And now I know why the dough never rises
in our house.