Let In The Light
A poem about Liberty, Equality, Sorority
If (all girls are taught,) Anything goes wrong In the house Or a home It is the woman’s fault. She is the pillar of the house The temple precinct The backbone of the home If she strays If she stops being virtuous Or devout, or disciplined, The home comes crashing down.
Buttressed by legend and lore Created by men in austere caves Or temples, or palaces, or forests, Men waited on, served, looked after by a woman Who created the myth Of the witch, the wanton, the wicked woman The impure, the unclean, the ungodly The creature it was possible, Nay, advisable, to use…and discard If it was done for the ‘greater glory’ Of ‘man’kind , mankind or huManity.
There is no one Who can reclaim the narrative The story, the legend, the lore But a woman, a girl Empowered by another woman To believe in herself Her body, her truth Her right to say “no!” And have it believed …to realise, that a bleeding That creates life Is not unclean, but divine And that only a god created by a Man Would assign impurity to it.
If, (all girls are taught,) To love themselves first Before they love anyone else, To value themselves, In all their ferocious strengths and frailties, To realise that they have a voice, too Since they are Not only half of humanity They CREATED the other half of humanity To own their own stories and lives And not surrender control… Then, they would never have to hide their light And the eternal source it comes from.
ⓒ 2022 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.
Shoutout to Dr. Fatima Imam for this delightful story:
And a shoutout to Ravyne Hawke, for this brave, brilliant piece:






