Gipsy Rugen (Year 11)
Inspiration artwork: Bulleh ki Jaana mai Qon , Alia Haider (2021)
How do I know who I am?
No words made to describe me
No book to tell my story
I don’t have a thought-out plot
I’m a character in someone else’s book
I am writing and words
I am not human
How do I know who you are?
Drag me away
Take what's mine and give me yours
“It’s a gift”
You say,
“Be grateful”
And now my house is filled with trinkets and paintings not mine, but yours
You erased my every word and rewrote my story
Disguised it as my handwriting
Is this who I am?
You as an author
And I as your object
Just a doll to be played with
Just words on a page
Red ink in a pen
Tell me who I am
Tell me what to do
How to speak
Where to go
You will write in my book
Until the words come to an end, as do I
You will throw it away
And call it lies
A book of sins
The book of my life
I am invisible
Inhuman
The wind passes through me.
I don’t have any use or purpose.
I am just here.
That’s my fate.
To live and die in silence,
Alone and only visible in the pages hugged together
And when my young ones wipe the dust from my pages
And read the ink carved into them
They will know who I am
Who they are.
Stolen people.
Characters in someone else’s book.
You’re writing and words,
But never the author.
The Art2Words Writing Prize is an annual writing competition at The Friends’ School. Read the full list of short-listed and winning entries here.
