DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE Poem: The Panes on my Body, by Hajer Requiq

You said the world wouldn’t crumble
if you touched me.
You tried importing comfort
to a body that dieted
on native fear.
You tried undoing
the workings of Culture
inside my flesh
and couldn’t see how deep
the Culture
‘did’ me.

I remember before going out,
as a little girl,
Mama would always
curtain the panes
on my body
while the neighbours’ girls strolled
shutter-less
and un-draped.

Even then, I knew
what the Culture gave some,
it took from so many.

I remember envying
how the daylight
flirted with the other girls
and wondering why the Culture
never touched them
as hard
as it touched
me.

Even then, I knew if I wanted
the light to break through my glass,
I had to let it
break me —

You said the world
wouldn’t crumble
if we touched,
and I said
it will, it will.

In this story,
the world always crumbled —
When the cherry blossoms
ripened on my chest,
when school boys
gripped at my dress trim
for the first time,
when I used chalk
to powder my face
and pinched my cheeks
for two minutes straight
to feign some rose-colour.
In my story,
the world always crumbles
in some way or other,
and Mama goes
and fixes it for me,
the neighbourhood’s Imam*
fixes it for me,
the Culture fixes it for me —
I don’t know for how long
I let their fixing
break me.

And now,
after years of window-sealing
and glass-shutting,
I can’t tell
if my panes were breaking
or simply opening up
when we first started
touching