Azarmidokht Elahi

Can you recall what separated us from our childhoods?
A creature with no name, no time, no place and no plan.
It was both male and female, young and old, tradition and modernity.
Its fragility covered the surrounding blood with a veil of grandmother’s carpet flowers.
It became a child who pursued other’s verification and admiration for touching its moments.
An enchanting youth who its coquettish manner faded its childish charm.
It became a boy who shaped his body by powders and drugs.
It became a girl who chose sexual intercourse unintentionally to make her gladness and gorgeousness eternal.
It became a mother who obliged us to select a stationary life for stabilising her own life and her own commitment.
It became a father who trained us to work well and wage-less for living our lives.
It became a grandmother whose smell of cardamom and rosewater metamorphosed us. A grandmother who substituted stories, ballads and mirth for squeezing food into our mouths to make us fleshy.
It became a grandfather who considered his apprenticeship in the shops as family heritage.
An ancient and handwritten book that determined all our values.
A level that determined bounds of our lives.
Mottos that categorised us to born femininity and bear masculinity.
By its colourfulness, it dressed us in routine duty of giving birth to another creature.
It marketed its coarseness with a high price.
It did not ascend from the sky suddenly, it was born hundreds years ago and matured before our births.