Hodan

She wonders if angels take breaks

and go to sleep.

If they work on a rota

and someone is late

Would that explain why

they didn't hear her weep

Or see her little body rake

with sobs so great.

Someone told her that love and faith

held hands and kept pain at bay

It was never strong enough to keep him away

Not once safely in bed she could lay.

At school she was pig tailed and uniformed grey

and with everybody else she was the same.

But she felt her difference wound

tightly around her woman's place.

Everyone else was to her

what white paper was to an ink stain.

She prayed and prayed

and still he came.

Everything matted and heavy

Like breathing lead.

Others count ceiling tiles

and try to escape the mental constraints of this bed,

she, instead asks God 'can you hear me'

Your angels may not have given you my message

But I left one with them last night

and all the nights that precede this.

Begging.

You created life and now I'm begging you to take it.

Not knowing how wrong

But knew it could never be right

her body too weak

so her spirit put up the fight.

And because she lives

she knows angels do not sleep at night

That they delivered her message

and in her He put it right.

Nimo Hussein

copyright 2010