by Shree
To burn the witch is to admit magic exists.
My mother lights the fire to my funeral pyre.
My screams muted in the fires roar.
My father reaps from my sacrifice.
From my ashes, his house is elevated.
My mother remained:
So comfortable in her oppression, she fed me patriarchy.
While every day her sons ran wild.
Youthful boys to be devoured by my father’s desires.
All vices begin at home, and home shall be their undoing.
While I remained in the small corners of my mother’s soul.
Her hidden magic – Her invisible scars.
History will forget her pain.
History will remember me not for my sacrifice.
But by the fears in the men’s heart.
I became just a tale of men’s undoing.
Shree (she/they) is an exchange student at Radboud University studying psychology, but back in the UK, she is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology. As a woman of colour and a refugee in the UK, she draws on her experiences of being amongst other things queer, and disabled as inspiration for my poems. Writing has always been challenging due to her dyslexia, but it remains an essential part of her life. Through writing, she can express herself and make sense of the world, especially from an intersectional perspective and recently she has been writing about power and conflict as well.
Raffia 