NO PROTECTION 2020
No one taught me how to tell my story. You were my first teacher. But I wasn’t prepared for what was to come, you didn’t warn me. No one whispered in my ear...
~ Can you teach me how to communicate? ~ I hold your story in my body. Several stories. That’s the only way I know how.
I remember you being fearless, when you were younger. IT was raw, IT was free. Pioneer. Power walking in your saree. Wrapping me up in your dupatta, like a seatbelt in a doorless baby taxi. 50miles an hour. Riding on the back of bicycle-vans together, loose in the air, legs swinging. We were early adventurers. Women together. All of us. Bora Khala, Shonchi Apu, Me You.
But you didn’t prepare me. You didn’t tell me
~I am the mother. You are the child.
You are the mother. I am the child? ~
You couldn’t have done anyway.
No one could have protected me
Not even you.
Raisa Kabir 2020
All photos by Tiu Makkonen