she splits the pomegranate open,
its rind cracking like a whispered secret.
juice trickles down her wrist, staining—staying.
her hands sink into the red,
skin torn apart, flesh spilling—
a mother’s touch, a daughter’s inheritance.
ruby seeds tumbling into our waiting palms,
red under our nails, sweetness on our tongues,
the taste of lineage, of sacrifice,
of love too ripe to swallow whole.
i ask her why my hands smell like pomegranates.
she tells me—this is womanhood.
we carry what we cannot clean.
we pass it down,
what was never asked for.
there is something about this—
the way the fruit bleeds, the way i carry its weight,
the way my mother’s hands once did the same.
this is how women remember—
in the fruit we break, the seeds we crush,
the sweetness that lingers
long after the wound.
—Noor ul Taba