Warp It

Manal Kamran

your lips they twist
perceptions in an instant.

your lips they twist
perceptions in an instant.

my ink stained fingertips
try to make sense of it

and all the things you say,
all the things you do

you seem
to forget.

when i was younger
you loved me

because i had the same chin
as baba.

you paid no attention
to mahad.

he looked like amma.
so you forced my mother

to feed spoiled biryani
to her two year old son.

as you watched.
as she wept.

“right now you are too dark
to marry,”

you say. i say,
“i won’t live my life with someone that shallow.”

did you get the hint?
stick to your sphere

grandmother and
leave me be. please.

Manal Kamran is a fourth-year international student at UBC in Vancouver, hailing from Karachi, Pakistan. She likes reading, rowing, oversleeping, and overeating. Friends on Facebook wish she’d stop going to so many concerts. Her friends hate her sarcasm, as do her parents. Her brother thinks she’s okay.

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