Herstory.

Baby girls barely old enough to walk are now being tempted to run, before they've even turned one.
Every day tells the same tired sex sells story, through magazine covers
and the media's attempt to make a woman feel as if she should be sorry.
Forced to apologize for her lack of feminine charms,
unless she has too much and becomes a target for masculine harm.
It cannot be unlearned once it's embedded in a child's tiny mind,
that beauty is all that matters, so one must never fall behind.

Plumpers and polishes, push-up bras and pearls
are just a sample of what is needed in order to be a real girl.
Despite all the advancements and steps taken in the fight for women's rights,
they are told it will all have been in vain without a man at home to warm her bed at night.
False standards and phony ideals result in eating disorders in the race for sex appeal.
Airbrushed models that are impossibly thin, lead so many teenage girls to strive for unattainable perfection.

As male counterparts are taught to hunt and provide,
women learn to cook and rear children but never how to survive.
Failed by a society that is sickly obsessed with looks,
no beauty pageant was ever won based on a contestant's love for books.
In developing nations, the birth of female progeny is considered a curse,
often leading to infanticide by parents ignorant to a woman's worth.
These same societies refuse to send their girls to school, afraid that knowledge is power that creates women that are impossible to control.

The wage gap in the west only succeeds to press the notion that men are truly best,
earning more on every dollar and often doing less.
Daughters of Eve are still being punished for her original sin,
kicked down more times than lifted up for having the misfortune of being born a woman.
Patriarchs and feudal lords alike always seem to forget,
the mothers who raised them that are now repaid with disrespect.
Misogyny has run rampant and is now an epidemic, the byproduct of years of oppression that has always been systemic.

History itself has focused on the victories of men,
even though there have been just as many triumphant, powerful women.
I pray for a world where gender roles cease to exist,
one in which discrimination between the sexes has been dismissed.
I still have hope that one day women are no strangers to equality
and are no longer victims of abuse or frivolity.
Female lives matter, a new generation of girls is on the rise, and they will not be silenced until the world has heard its cries.
What better time than now for mankind to realize
that the women we objectified for so long should only ever be prized.

Release.

More desperate than I have ever been before to be released,

this never-ending love has rotted in my heart leaving me sick and covered in disease.

My skin crawls as though it's infested with fleas;

my hair falls out in clumps and makes me drop, distraught, to my knees.

I beg to be free from the aching in my chest;

the constant cravings that were never answered have only left me bereft.

Lovesick now, but once I was so sick in this love,

that I confused it for blessings from the Heavens above.

My body feels pain that cancer could even cure;

the aftermath of our war is not worth the bliss we endured.

Every day arrives with new ways in which I feel sore,

that I am left wondering if my desire to carry on will ever be restored.

In retrospect, it's clear that we jumped the gun,

your words were the bullets that I never wanted to outrun.

The injustice of it all is that you have already healed,

your world is once again filled with wonder whilst mine has congealed.

Unable to ask for help since my pride refuses to allow it,

so I just grin and bear it, hoping my mind will soon disavow it.

Longing for a prayer, a cause, even a curse that will resolve this;

that my maker will soon hear my cries and illuminate my way through this darkness.

I search for a solution to the riddle in my bones, an answer to help me understand why my spirit moans.

Late at night, I still feel your presence like a phantom limb,

the kind that I lost long ago but just will not let me continue to live.

Insidious love, the kind I wish I had never known,

that has robbed me of my happiness and now haunts me in my very own home.

I sought out another to fill the void you left when we took our last breaths together,

but quickly learned that nobody else was capable of holding my hand through the stormy weather.

Forever never came but died as soon as it escaped our lips,

perhaps that was just the punishment for falling prey to this emotional eclipse.

I berate time for declining to heal the hurt in my hollow heart;

the cliche that it would heal all things has torn my sanity apart

from waiting.

I carefully studied the words of other jilted, dejected lovers,

looking for a recipe for my soul to finally recover.

The anguish is too much to bear, it's left me worst for wear,

unfair that you ensnared me then left me despaired and weary.

Even suicide could not destroy the hurt inside for it's my soul that needs a surgery,

a lesser man would have you tried for your lies and all your perjury.

I am still drowning in us, it fills me with self-contempt,

made a vow to myself to never be the victim of another's pathetic attempts.

I embark on this self-imposed exile from love or pleasures of the flesh,

as I reconnect with myself and prepare to start afresh.

I collect my dignity from its shelf, covered in dust from much neglect,

then promise to become reacquainted with forgotten self-respect.

Close up the sutures, treat all the wounds, 

conceal all these scars until there's not even a bruise.

Muster up all the courage inside me to regain my strength,

I know I will survive this, the finish line is finally within arm's length.

Chaos.

Volatile from the start, this pain is all that's left of the tainted love we bought,
now you are poison in my heart and I am chaos in your thoughts.  

One day we were like gardens fragrant from flowers that could only bloom,
the next we were as dreary as death row denizens delighted by their impending doom.

These inconsistencies that caused our souls to rise, elated, and then fall so low,
multiplied and then grew stronger with each offense, with every blow.  

It was never easy to pretend that we were not condemned,
foolish to believe that success could be achieved.

We tried too hard, tasted failure many times, made then broke a million promises,
became casualties of our own carnal crimes.  

It was harder to let go than to accept that we were through,
since you went away I am no stranger to the blues.

Time is such a terrorist, it was supposed to heal all wounds,
instead it's left me stranded in a city that your existence has ruined.  

Every street is paved with memories, even the breeze whispers your name,
love is the greatest felony, I wish I never played its game.

Acid rain falls from the skies stinging my eyes that never dry,
I am imprisoned by my inability to invent an alibi.  

The stars that we so often wished on crashed and fell to the ground,
all our dreams turned to whispers; once they were so loud.

All things end, good or bad, but not us—we were supposed to last,
we went from being inseparable to strangers in a flash.  

As the fog clears, it becomes much easier to see;
I spent a lifetime holding on to you when all I needed was already inside of me.

Returning to the man I was supposed to be,
I resist the urge to reminisce about the way you made me feel.  

Resilient, as I reconnect with myself and parts of me that I repressed,
I reflect on the lessons I have learned and see that I am blessed.  

Cradle Robbers in Peshawar.

The smallest coffins are the heaviest as they are stark reminders of the greatest failure of mankind, children targeted by terrorists is the exact eye for an eye ideology that has left the whole world blind. Their tiny voices may have been silenced now but they will echo throughout time, 
until we can find a way to ensure that no child is ever left behind. 

There is no humanity when parents are forced to bury their young, 
no sense of security when classrooms are emptied and filled with blood. 
These atrocities seem to increase in alarming numbers, 
creating communities that are stripped of their liveliness and then deprived of their slumber. 

From Sandy Hook to Nigeria, Syria, Israel or Palestine, 
these senseless acts of brutality will never fail to cross the line. 
No amount of time could heal the broken hearts of mothers 
forced to find the courage to remain strong for little sisters and brothers. 

The arrogance of man speaks of progress and achievement 
choosing to remain ignorant to the sorrow and bereavement. 
We are not civilized and we never will be 
until our weakest links lay down their weapons and embrace harmony. 

So many dreams shattered in an instant, in the blink of an eye 
more than a hundred lives stolen to avenge army strikes. 
Children surrounded by war know little happiness as it is, 
accustomed to the ugliness that should never be witnessed. 

They should not be deprived of an education or robbed of their innocence 
amid the darkness whose only hope for light lied in their very existence. 
What these militants' malnourished minds will never understand 
is the strength and resilience of those affected by their wicked plans. 

They are survivors and will always rise up, come together and revolt,
against these self-proclaimed holy men that equate religiosity with bullet holes. 
History will not only remember this as the day everything faded to black 
but also as the moment that united a nation to finally fight back.