THE MORNING GARDEN

By Ayesha Ali

The garden was as green as the malachite of his eyes;

they were the first thing I saw when I opened mine. 

My hands reached for him in hunger, for I was made hollow, 

they brushed over tender cheeks, fresh meat for me to swallow. 

So I ate from his lips before mine knew how to speak, 

no fruit tasted sweeter than his blood between my teeth. 

I was a thorn in his side before the roses grew their own, 

I was made for wanting more, and would never feel at home.

So what did you do? Where did you go?

He taught me all that I knew, long before the fall: 

Father, brother, husband, lover; for me, he was all. 

His touch put Midas to shame, my worth became more than gold, 

but he’d disappear in the night, and our bed would grow cold. 

At the first sign of hardship, he was quick to run away, 

he’d let me rot in silence, til the hours turned to days. 

But God denied me coherence; my mouth hid a forked tongue, 

my hiss was met with biting words, with which he always won.

Then there was the flushed face, the crack of his flying hand, 

and all his other habits that I could never stand. 

I’d be the sacrificial lamb raised for the killing, 

and the sacred angel who stopped the blood from spilling. 

I was Abraham who lifted the knife and wept, wept, wept,

and Isaac who only had one word ringing in his head: 

Please. Please. Please. 

I had no mother to blame, no reflection to indulge, 

but the flowing river where God’s secrets were divulged. 

No hidden knowledge need reveal itself to me,

not when I already saw myself so clearly:

The blood and bruises should have brought me to devastation,

but knowing more than he did was my one consolation.

Perhaps I was not as strong nor gifted in speech,

but my eyes beheld all that needed to be seen.

Not just my hair falling in waves like water, 

nor that I was God's wretched eldest daughter—

I saw His untainted image, His true name cast in gold,

I saw Earth in the making, and when you'd enter this world.

I saw the sun set without him, and lost myself in the red,

feeling more in the colour than I did in that loveless bed.

I'd memorise him like this; sweet, kind, charming.

But then he’d turn heartless. The difference was alarming. 

I saw every inch of beauty that he could not,

but I saw the wrong in him, that unholy rot.

For it was he who plucked the apple from the tree, 

devouring his fill until he could not breathe.

Half lodged itself in his throat, and the other turned rotten, 

he choked on revelation, his transgression forgotten. 

So they gave away his name to the very first sin?

They credited mankind's first discovery to him, 

though the power of its knowledge soon weakened him. 

His eyes seemed to grow greener, but his temper darkened, 

when he realised I had known that this would happen. 

My gut pulled at itself, telling me he would find out, 

but when he demanded an answer, I could not explain how. 

The irony was that he accused me of betrayal;

he should have been my guardian, in that he had failed. 

But when I bit into the fruit, I too became overwhelmed.

From that day onwards, I could never go back home, 

I hid in forests and roamed the mountains alone. 

It would be a death sentence if he saw me again, 

so I left him to starve like a lion in his den. 

My tears mixed with rain as I watched the garden's colours fade, 

and I gave up on running, my body wasted away. 

Until one day I awoke with no ache of hunger, 

and my body felt lighter, as if I’d grown younger. 

But weren’t we born women with no childhood to remember?

Here is what happened after everything had changed: 

When the apple rotted, the garden did the same. 

It seemed the contempt he had for me spread to everything else.

Flowers wilted, mountains crumbled, the wind turned against itself. 

And when he saw a lying serpent, a serpent I became, 

there was no devilish snake; it simply became my name. 

For it was I who was with you in the garden that day, 

maybe I should've clung to your hand before leading you astray. 

I had failed to tell you the truth, but my greatest mistake 

was not saving you from him had I learned to be brave.

Source: “Lilith and Eve” by Yuri Klapouh (1963) [Accessed on Tumblr from @ancient-hoe]