By Anshudha Garimella
It’s women’s history month and I was inspired to write the following poem.
No Man’s Land
I’m in a place so dark and dead
Yet I have hope, perhaps I shouldn’t dare
Is it really necessary to step on every flower that dares to grow?
I’m trying like so many others to live in a wasteland
Trying to survive in the no-man’s land.
This ground always was No Man’s Land
Yet it hurts you if I just stand
here, tall and proud
Perhaps you want me on the ground
Why is it so bad if I just stand next to you on this Motherland?
The only thing we share
Maybe I shouldn’t dare!
Would it make you feel better if I fought back with tears?
some did, the message still wasn’t clear.
I’m just trying to live in my ways on this divine land
Live in my body and in my mind
Others of my kind are doing the same
The beauty of this earth gets engulfed by the flames of mankind
This divine ground is no less mine
than it is yours.
This land is something we share
Yet women have to dare
To fight
For a place in this no-man’s land.
If you are winter then I am spring
None of us are less important
than the other.
Yet I have to seek for cover
when you rain down violently
on my ground
but still, we grow our flowers time and time again
Is it so bad if we’re just here? Standing beside you on this no-man’s land?
It always was No Man’s Land.
You can step on our petals but we still dare
To live in harmony on a land we share
Time and time again we are seduced to fight each other
Our own, our girls, our women, our kind
While we are also fighting a gruesome war in our minds
Just to live in harmony with ourselves and humankind
Each day I feel I’m on some foreign land
An extraterrestrial plane- unkind
Because some can’t understand how to live together on this no-man’s land.
This divine ground belongs to
No man
No woman
No child
Nobody
We belong to it.
It always was No Man’s Land
Why can’t I live here with you side by side?
You are the winter I am the spring
You are autumn and I am summer
None of us are any more important than the other
Dare I say we are equal?
If you are the sky then this ground belongs to me
If you are the sun
then I am the sea
Why does he have to be at odds with me?
daisies-in-the-wind 