Written piece
The Green is Fading
Merium Kazmi
Pakistan
About this piece
A poem exploring diasporic identity and the threads that bind and fray as learn what home might be.
Brown skin
gliding across pale sheets.
Yielding, because you must.
Never because you can.
Threadbare cotton
laced with promises of green
bound by a patchwork
of flattery and debt.
Damp in places.
The green is fading.
Anchored by a mother's embroidery—
candlelit pinpricks.
Lost to a father behind glass.
Breathless—
framed by an IKEA bed.
Yielding, because you can.