A Thousand… [Archives:2006/913/Community]

By: Lamya Al-Sakkaf
[email protected]
A thousand times she had risen

with the sun

Baking the bread of the day

Making lunch

for a thousand guests

Washing clothes

of a thousand children

she had once borne

Vacuuming a thousand steps

Falling down the stairs

under a thousand stars

A thousand times she had cried

in front of the mirror

Looking at her face

of a thousand wrinkles

Broken soul

Injured heart

Bruised body

Under a thousand layers

of blackness

Lost years

Twenty that felt like a thousand

A thousand times she had prayed

for her husband

to never come back

to marry a thousand wives

And for herself

to never have another child

Another bruise

Another chore

Another world to carry

on her weary shoulders

Another thousand worries

and oven burns

A thousand times they'd say

She died young

That woman of twenty years

and a thousand smiles

and a thousand tears

and a thousand children

and a thousand bruises

and cooking pots

and wrinkles

Twenty years

they say she had lived

but they don't know

that she was

a thousand years
——
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