POLITICAL Poem: The women lie, by Tehreem Fatima

The women lie.
The women lie here.
The women lie here and there.
The women lie here and there, the men laugh at their losses,
Letting go of their weighted chests,
Letting loose their tainted words—
An attempt to deceive the lying women.

Scattered. Shattered. Still, the women awaken and lie
Below the homes they do not own,
Below the children they did not birth,
Below the society that hates them.
They lie.
The sins spill from their tongues,
Until their mouths run dry and

The women are silent.

So, the men try.
The men try tricks
To sew their sickly smiles on to branded frowns.
The men try tricks
To tempt the sweet sting of feminine freedom
The women will never have.
Peace. So the women lie?

Not here. Not there. Everywhere.
The women lie.
The women need to lie—
To survive. To guide.
Their poor daughters in a world that despises them.
So they cry and they lie and they die wishing
For words of honesty.

Words of honesty.
The truth. The facts.
That the difference between the words
“woman” and “man” are just the wo-ken,
People who awoke,
People who wake up
And perceive that a human is a human.

A man is no more a human
Than a woman is.
And the women need not lie
To themselves or their sisters that they are any less
Than, or that their autonomy is not theirs,
But owned by some “superior” being.
The women need.

The women do not need.
The women do not need anyone.
The women just need themselves—
To speak their minds and unwind their tied tongues
From the lies that have blazed
Their beautiful brains,
And peacefully lie.

The women lie.
The women lie upon.
The women lie upon the past.
Lie upon the past until their future is clear,
Caressing their daughter’s daughter,
Until she stands.