Women With No Homeland

She carried a rationed bottle of clean water in her child’s backpack

She carried her baby’s birth certificate in a plastic bag through flooded streets

She carried salt in her shawl to remind her of the ocean she crossed

She carried a lullaby only her grandmother knew

She carried silence—because translation was too dangerous

She carried her mother’s name in her passport and her father’s in her bones

Women Who Risked Being Seen

She carried bulletproof notebooks and the names of girls missing from the news

She carried a headscarf and a megaphone

She carried chalk for the names they erased

She carried the prison sentence her brother avoided

She carried pages torn from banned books

She carried theory and thread—bell hooks in her purse and pins in her braid

She carried a nation’s hope through checkpoints and closed doors

What I Carried

I carried a funeral program folded in my wallet

I carried my aunt’s perfume on my favorite scarf

I carried a scholarship I never got

I carried the words “you’re too sensitive” in every classroom

I carried softness like a blade

I carried my mother’s stroke, my aunt’s grief, and still made it to class

I carried their expectations and my silence at the same time

I carried every no I swallowed so someone else could say yes

They say we carried too much.