To be born from the ashes of rectitude
Soil and dust upon bones privy to nature
what she brings when she bares herself to eyes closed.
There is a sensuality in Persian culture,
where the Caspian sea meets the sand.
Our moans of ecstasy are hushed
we are mere child bearers, of immediate service to men.
Our husbands suffer as well, torn between an ideal of perverse sacrility
and the longing affection of what feels right in bed
Skin to skin, heart to heart
we cover up our women and stone to death the free birds instead.
But the pain the promise of freedom brings, what Hell!
All around you the images of sex and wealth
the beauty you have but must hide under the folds of silk
My nation is ripped apart by the smoke of guilt
Blood is shed and still the bodies bruised we cannot claim to.
What was the last thought of my sister who was bound and buried to her neck?
Her eyes bore blackness as she took blows to the head.
Have we evolved since the first empires or do we face the music hearing only our heartbeats instead?
I wish to dance nude in plain sight for Iran to see. I wish to make love in effervescent beauty.
Not masked, not stripped away of integrity.
I wish for the world to one day be free...
yet these were the pleas of countless before and countless after me
I drink the blood of the women buried beneath this soil
products of rape and greed. The fear of what we ache for and take instead by need.
Oh, to be born from the ashes of rectitude...
I have isolated myself from it all and fail to believe it be solitude.
For the ghosts with charred faces who walk the deserts in search of light
May the next world be a more forgiving place, may you part with insight.
Where the earth is pregnant with crops and blossoms upon trees
where you can dance naked throught the fields to the hymns of greener leaves
Where you lay with a man and he loves you before first caress.
I plant this seed here, on the earth that has swallowed her dead children of forgotten past
rise beyond the mountains to hear different sighs.
Behold, listen to the moans of birth and labor echoing above the skies...