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.

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The Art2Words Writing Prize is an annual writing competition at The Friends’ School. Read the full list of short-listed and winning entries here.