Pakistan is always a phone call with static
Cutting out in the middle because I only know the language
And not the land where my grandfather
Built a stone house for my Nani
With purple walls. Purple was her favorite color;
I know that not because she ever told me but because
Every sweater she ever knitted me was a royal violet and
That was the best she could do in a place where women couldn't love things without evil eyes boring into their skulls
In the foyer there is a large metal grate
That looks up to the sky like sliced skin.
There is a drain in the floor for
Laundry water and not bodies
But in the end there is little difference between detergent and blood.
When I look at my Nani's picture and see her consumed by a maroon wedding veil
I am supposed to cry because she was beautiful and
Not because she was twelve.
I am supposed to see the matriarch of our clan and
Not wish she had the freedom to take our births back
Because no one ever asked her if
She wanted to have eleven kids.
She loved boiled eggs and rice with milk and sugar.
I remember teaching her how to use a microwave and say "no English".
I remember her teaching me Urdu even though I was raised far away from her
House with purple walls
Because two languages was the closest I could ever come to understanding
What she couldn't say in either one.
I loved her so much
I was relieved when she died.
She lived a long life-
I do not know if it was a good one.
By the end, death was a mercy.
I couldn't hear to see her in pain any longer;
Eighty years of belonging to everyone
But herself.