A woman with a gun
Driven out. Cast out
by her neighbours

because she was killed internally
and could feel nothing
but pain and disgust

and because they too can
no longer believe who she was
at home, in the paradise

before the arrival of the men
who use you cruelly
until they discard you

and impale the broomstick
grandma's cane, their bayonet
or a bullet in you

The woman with the gun
wants to sleep again, to feel
the warmth of the sun again

She wants to defend
a new paradise, being awake
from the nightmare

of inhumanity
and free herself from the cage
of her broken body