Kash Baloch — Poetry on Identity, Love, and Survival

There is no humanity  when hatred prevails and reigns supreme, when we are divided by our faith,  dogma, race or community. Our focus should be on  the forty-nine innocent lives that were lost, instead of whom to blame  and which group we must accost. When hatred takes over,  ego is the sole reason a louse could feel like a man,  arrogance ignored results in fools  acting out their wicked plans. Anyone who instills fear in others  should be labeled as a terrorist, it should not be reserved exclusively for  that religion from the Middle East. What difference does it make  when families are bereaved,  no amount of bleach could ever erase  these tears or this blood from the streets. Who would have thought a city filled with Disney magic  could experience ugliness like this,  if Mickey Mouse is not even safe  then no one really is.  The world is awash in mourning; the...

And he makes me want to carve myself. Starving from extended winter, I beckon to you with a finger. Trembling; my veins fill with splinters. Wooden slivers cut me from the inside, I race towards any assistance. Pressed, I pray for brooding brilliance. Why do you play my ribs like piano keys. Signal to you with smoky urgency, peer into your zippered soul, through magnifying glass eyes, I catch you in action. Hinting at the secret; the secret code to my hunter heart. You can access its emotion. But do not tell the others. Capture me in your net, I beach myself on your bed. You become the shore, I slap at you lazily, like ocean. Flowing, we crash into one another. Resonate within me like cymbals. I vibrate—cut me in two million pieces. I win with my hands down. Hold me in your clammy palm, then blow me away, like dust  & glitter. Just let me scatter. I yearn to know all the places! No longer a mortar fortress. Refined by this scandalous resilien...

A haunting melody emerges, from deep inside a Scandinavian enchantress. Her sentiments alluring,  capture my fluorescence. I yearn to be charmed; she steals all the blessings. Pricks me with a needle, drawing blood from a peephole. With one thread, spellbinding, beads dance, emphasizing. I underline a reminder, joined at the waist, we mingle. Crash into me like a stormy shore, dampening my every pore. Meet me inside a darkened cave, your fingers are hungry. Piercing, I sew us together; classical dances align us. Like a string coming loose, we are forever unraveling.

Saartjie, Saartjie, Baartman, her name warrants repetition. She was a Nubian queen who was exploited without permission. They dubbed her the "Hottentot Venus," as though she were a freak, stripped her of her dignity, then marvelled at her physique. This African woman is the reason why black females are still fetishized. She had no say or control over the shape or size of her thighs. My spirit weeps for Saartjie, paraded throughout Europe, like some kind of clown, and whenever I think of injustice, her name is the first to come to mind.

The day she learned to talk, her mother cautioned her to listen. Moments after her first steps, mama showed her how to run. Preparing young Sylvie for the inevitable day,  when she caught the attention of a man who refused to go away. Sylvie knew all about the monsters under the bed, she was well-versed on the boogeyman, who filled her with dread. She could describe the Wolf-man, Dracula, and even Frankenstein, but her mother warned her the wickedest creature of all was mankind. She said, “This world was not built for us, we are merely trespassers here.” Determined to protect her daughter from the same predatory men she feared. Why do we teach young girls to keep themselves safe, without teaching little boys not to hurt or maim? We desire to build our daughters up to believe they can do anything, to raise them to be confident, and devoid of suffering.  But what good is it when society just shoots them down, laughing at them for thinking it were any diffe...