Shake the dust

This is for the fat girls,
this is for the little brothers,
this is for the school yard wimps,
this is for the childhood bullies that tormented them,
this is for the former prom queen,
this is for the milk crate ball players,
this is for the Night Time cereal eaters,
and for the retired elderly Wal-Mart store front door greeters…
Shake the Dust..This is for the benches and the people sitting on them,
for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns,
for the men who have to hold down three jobs simply to hold up their children, for the nighttime schoolers, and for the midnight bikers who are trying to fly
…Shake the Dust…
This is for the two year olds who can not be understood because they speak half English and half God, shake the dust,for the girls whose brothers are going crazy!For those gym class wall flowers and for the twelve year old kids afraid of taking public showers,for the kid whose always late to class because he forgets the combination to his locker,for a girl who loves somebody else shake the dust.
This is for the hard men…the hard men who want love but know it won’t come…For the ones who are forgotten,for the ones the amendments do not stand up for,for the ones who are told to speak only when spoken to and then are never spoken to.Speak every time you stand so that you do not forget yourself,never let a moment go by you that doesn’t remind you that your heart beats 900 times a day…That there are enough gallons of blood to make you an ocean Do not settle for letting these waves that settle and for the dust to collect in your veins.This is for the sell abate pedophile who keeps on struggling, for the poetry teachers and for the people who go on vacation alone, and for the sweat that drips off of a Mick Jaggers singing lips, and for the shaking skirt on Tina Turner’s shaking hips, and for the heavens and for the hells for which Tina has lived. This!Is for the tired and for the dreamers, for those families that want to be like the Cleavers, with perfectly made dinners with songs like Wally and the Beaver. This! Is for the big its, this is for the sexists, this is for the killers, this is for the Big House; pin sentenced cats becoming redeemers, and for the springtime that always shows up right after the winters, this is… This is for you…Make sure that by the time the fishermen returns you are gone, because just like the days I burn at both ends, every time I write, every time I open my eyes I’m cutting out a part of myself to give to you. So Shake the Dust, and take me with you when you do none of this…What has this has fucking ever been for me, that pushes and pulls.. pushes and pulls for you! So grab this world by it’s clothes pins and shake it out again and again and jump on top for a spin and when you hop off shake it off for this is yours. Make, Make my words worth, make it not just another poem that I write not just like another poem like another night, make it like it’s heavy about us all, walk into it breath it in let it crash through the halls of your arms like the millions of years of millions poets coursing like blood pumping, pushing and making you live, shaking the dust! So when the world knocks at your front door clutch the knob and open on up, running forward into it’s wide spread greeting arms with your hands before you your fingertips trembling, though they may be

The women who made news this year are not the usual list of celebrities and models, the sexiest and richest or scandalous, but more than anything else, they are the women who survived, fought through and are living in spite of wars and conflicts.

Malala Yousafzai, the girl who was shot by the Taliban for going to school and survived two years ago, won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize at age 17. She became the youngest person to ever win the award. Some received the news of her win with hope for the reconstruction of Pakistan's education system, that, despite the continuous threat of Islamic militants are in complete rupture mainly due to corruption and almost non-existence enforcement from its government while others worry that she would end up a 'manufactured icon', a puppet for invisible hands to infiltrate their agendas into the people's minds. Unfortunately if the latter case is true, Malala would be the one with most to lose.

While the latest US-led strikes in the middle east, this time is to battle the group dubbed by western media as 'the most sophisticated, well-funded militant group', ISIS, in Syria and Iraq, also produced an unlikely 'icon' for women in the likes of Mariam al-Mansouri, UAE's only female fighter jet pilot. Irony is perhaps the best word to describe what took place after she was discovered by the world, when western media networks like Fox news took on Mariam's gender as the butt of jokes, completely downplaying and veiling her contributions to the military. The comments made by Eric Bolling were horridly laced with misogyny and sexism despite the popular contention that such vices are inherent in the society which Mariam comes from -- Arab Muslim.

Earlier this year, during the latest Palestine-Israel conflict that erupted during Ramadhan, saw the plight of the Palestinian womenfolk highlighted by the media. The women, who manouvered domestic economy by producing homemade products, operating kitchens and providing heat in the midst of rubbles before and after every deadly rocket strikes by Israel. Close to 70% of Gaza's male population are unemployed. The supply of sufficient goods and services rely mostly on the tunnels, heavily regulated by their rich owners and highly risky for the men tasked to smuggle the goods and services. But it was the women who plough through the hardship, by raising and feeding victims of the war, especially traumatized children, who deserve admiration.

In another case that highlights the plight of females caught in the destructive cycle of religious extremism are the schoolgirls in Nigeria, kidnapped by Islamic militants Boko Haram has yet to return home. Even more saddening, was the recent development that some of them are being forced to be on the front line with the military while the rest had to stay as 'wives' or 'comfort women' for the militants. Their abduction had sparked a viral movement  "Bring Back Our Girls" in other countries, even NATO had sent their troops to rescue the girls, the leader of Boko Haram had recently died in an attack launched by US. But the girls are still with the militants. Perhaps scared and scarred for the rest of their lives. Imagining their condition send shivers to my spine.

I'm sure that the stories I've listed above represent only a fraction of the experiences of women in modern times, especially those caught in conflict and wars. There are destruction and grievances in this world but I am also sure that there are women living as normal beings who do not have their access to basic rights restricted by others. I'm living such a life and every time I read the news about the plight of other women in the darker side of the world, I can't help but feel very grateful for my destiny. Regardless, it is not enough to just feel gratitude to god, He had promised that the world will always be enough as a sustenance for all of us and grabbing, robbing, killing are not needed for people to enjoy the world. Then what are the responsibilities of those who are living in the more peaceful side of the world, who doesn't have to risk their lives going to school or abducted to become child soldiers?