Chains

My humble servant could not trespass
Once she said with a voice of unborn metal rocks
"You see I wasn't born to try, or choose"
I know that she wets her bed every night, she won't
tell,
She smells of butter and lime, or grey beavers
I keep imagining her under the body of a chair
shouting across terrains
Carrying the inch she grows each day in pouches of
white dress
She can turn gold to silver, silver to red grass
While crying like the mongoose she has never seen
before
My humble servant prays that everything would cease
Before she hears an egg crack



As I watched him fly

What I hated the most is that I turned into a
desperate woman
"How hard it is", I thought, "to have so much hope"
And how hard it is indeed to have hope
I am not saying we live in a world of despair
Because we don't
I have seen happy people before
Holding hands.
I am just saying that some people are
 burdened with carrying all the despair in the world
 And above that they also carry hope
 And it is too heavy for them
 to bear them both
The same people who dreamed of turning to donkeys,
koalas
or butterflies
The same people who saw their lives pass by while
eating a pancake for breakfast



About the author:
Aya Ibrahim Bassiouny has been writing poetry and short stories for almost half her life. She lives in Cairo and is currently doing her M.A. in Middle Eastern History.

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