Lies

I sit by the window and do my schoolwork.

Right across the alley a brick house,

                                   a birdcage in the window. An old woman,

with hair tied with yellow ribbons, comes by the window

twice a day and feeds the cockatoo.

The bird repeats every word the woman utters.

The news reader broadcasts horror news with passion–

riot broke out in the town, everyone is leaving.

Sometimes I see my elder sisters

hobnobbing with gangsters in the alleyway.

They stare at their guns with admiration.

Gangsters touch my sisters’ chests.

They tremble like little birds.

It feels like everything is a setup, whatever

I read in these books are lies.