Malala
The scratching of pens stopped as Mingora’s heat took over.
After the test,
the scary feeling went away,
and I wasn’t afraid of dying anymore.
That night,
I asked God,
can I die and come back in the morning?
When the sun came up all golden,
I started to feel better.
Twenty-two of us crammed into the hot,
stuffy dyna.
The driver did his usual thing on the bumpy road,
and the city sounds got louder.
The yellow plastic sheet flapped like a tattered wing,
and one of the girls started singing.
We talked about face creams and grades,
sitting close together on the hard wooden benches.
Past the meat shop and ice-cream stand,
bikes and rickshaws dodged around the creep.
Moniba held my hand as we walked down the road.
Then there was a turn and a jolt,
and something felt wrong in the air.
We passed the power plant;
its smoke made everything look gray.
The colors faded,
and the bright world seemed to disappear.
That’s weird, I whispered.
Where did all the rickshaws go?
It got quiet,
the song faded,
and then men in white coats started to surround us.
The driver laughed after the man asked him something,
because he was on the bus.
Someone in the back was like a ghost,
turning day into night.
Who is Malala?
“What’s going on?” he asked the crowd.
He sounded sharp,
but not too loud.
The girls didn’t say anything,
but their eyes looked at my headscarf.
I held my friend’s hand,
as we stopped on the quiet street.
I am Malala, the girl who fought for every child’s right to learn.