God and His Angels (explained)

God and His Angels 

On the night before my Literature in English exam, I was studying Mansfield Park and the role of women in the Victorian Age. Mainly discussing their position in the social ladder, that’s when the 0900 pm headlines blared on the TV screen announcing over 300 babies being left to die alone in rubbish dumps, streets, or in crops. 99% of them being female.  All of a sudden, the women of Victorian age that could be termed as “ruled class” of the society seemed mysteriously insignificant in comparison to the state of severe misogyny in every street and house of my home country.

Pakistan is facing a wide spread infanticide of girls and sex-selective abortions all over. For me, the notion of a father or the males depriving her( a newborn baby girl) of a life, is too used to a thought which no longer demands an explanation. However, the thought of a mother, throwing away her daughter, previously a part of her body, into garbage cans where if were denied to face the beasts of the world, then mice bites, silenced her…. For good, seems a rather indigestible.  I thought about this for days, after swimming through dark thoughts and reasons with vile imagery, I analyzed the position of a mother. A mother in a patriarchal society, what “good” reason could there be to kill her child?

My poem, with the same name as this piece of writing is inspired by these events. I imagined a mother in Pakistan, preferably in semi-rural areas of Punjab. She soon learns that her child is a girl. She, the poems protagonist, does not hate the ones of her gender but fears for her daughter’s life; an oppressed life. A life where at every stage she is reminded of being the weaker, the less important and in some placed if “ruled” then in others as: “owned.” She is standing at the edge of her life, a roof’s edge or a cliff possibly an unsafe shore of a river. This poem is a fight within her, where she struggles to let herself die with her child before she gives birth to her, to save her from the exact life that she has lived.

She then imagines herself nailed to a cross in Hell as a punishment of murder and suicide, but she finds satisfaction in the sight of all the girls killed or tortured before or after birth, dressed as angels. receiving the love and care they had every right to in this world. God takes care of His most beloved creatures, the ones that have been tortured by devils and fallen angels upon earth. These are God’s “Angles.”

Now you may read the poem. And do not forget to leave your comments, as they are much needed and valued :)