Below is a poem I wrote for a school project. I thought it would be a cool idea to put it on my blog since it directly relates to the content I write about.

What’s My Crime?

A thousand years I’ve lived in this prison,

Stripped of my Freedom,

Stomach empty due to malnutrition,

Isolated from anything and everything

In my prison the walls are cold and grey,

The walls are closing in,

Tighter, Tighter, Tighter,

Cruel and unfeeling,

They stand up all day,

Watching without pity,

Laughing at my dismay

In my prison I stare through the barred window,

At my brothers running Free,

And l wonder,

If I had of pulled out the lucky card,

In the lottery of life,

Would I still be stuck in this unforgiving prison?

I’ve never understood why,

It was I who was trapped,

In this inescapable prison,

While my brothers have had the chance to,

Ignite their sparks,

And make their dreams reality

But just one moment,

Turned my life around,

When I simply found an old book,

Lying on the ground

When I opened the aged book,

The aroma embraced me in a warm hug,

And as I ran my fingers down its worn spine,

I could hear the words screaming to be read,

So I began to read,

And as the words entered my head,

I could just taste the freedom,

That my brothers had everyday

But just as fast as my life had turned right-side up,

It flipped upside down again,

Because my one taste of freedom,

Was snatched from my fingertips,

As fast as light,

Pushing me deeper,

Into my plight

It was Papa,

That kept me locked up,

Like his prisoner,

Forcing me to cook and clean

Stuck inside,

Hardly ever seen

So even though my house doesn’t have bars,

It is still my prison,

What’s my crime you ask?

Being born a GIRL

          Globally, there are 65 million girls out of school. The young girl in my poem is supposed to represent all those girls deprived of an education. In my poem, I described her life as a prison, because she feels as though she cannot escape her fate. In the developing world, many girls are forced into marriage at a young age, and then pushed into having babies before their bodies are even ready. This is the girl’s future that she wishes she could escape from. The reason the title is “What’s My Crime?” is because the girl doesn’t understand why she and her brothers get treated so differently. To her, whether you’re male or female, you’re still human, and all humans have human rights, and one of those rights is education. Basically, the message my poem is trying to send out is gender should not determine your rights and freedoms.

I hope you enjoyed reading my poem!

Thanks for joining me on my journey to change the world!

-Diviya