Welham Girls' School

In a drawer, I found a map of the world

folded into fours and then once again.

The borders had faded with age,

to a lighter blue like the

veins under all our skins

 

I wish all maps were like that, with

faded borders so we belonged

to no one and to everyone all at once.

So that if I were to see you tomorrow

I would grieve with you when

someone's lifetime had passed yours by.

 

Maybe we too would be like rivers

flowing from the heart of a country

and into another, a perennial connection.

For what is a map if not a prison?

For what are the black lines

if not delusions of safety?

 

I don't know why we allowed

the black lines to bind us anyway,

so when everyone you come from

has disappeared I'll weep with you

and wash out the lines the

earth allowed us to give it.

 

We are all so lost that

naming blank spaces can't save us,

and making boundaries can't protect us.

We draw lines in the sand

but these lines fold into themselves

before we are done making them

 

And that line, just west of Punjab,

How dare it? How dare it cover

the ground that is till today tinged with red?

How dare it cover the bodies of the people

who have died there and for what?

It dared to because we let it.

 

Don't ever forget

that if I were to spin a globe

and stop it with my finger

I would land on a place

where people have died

all because of a map with borders.

 

-          Jitya Bagga H/586