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baya sings (19/30)

prompt: write a landay. Landays are 22-syllable couplets, generally rhyming. The form comes from Afghanistan, where women often use it in verses that range from the sly and humorous to the deeply sardonic and melancholy…a form of poetry often composed in secret, and rarely written down.

my mother says i am all sacred
she whispers this into the blanket that holds me warm

my mother loves the sound of my voice
she follows me with her eyes while i dance in the dust

she tells me that she loves only me
but i see her watch my mother in the field with awe

she says that i am a miracle
but i think the magic is her love which made my life

she begs the gods of obsidian,
whom she created, to carry my heart in their mouths

i’m not afraid of my mothers’ love
emotion overflows memory, fhangda bursts the shell