Have dreams for your future
Smile, darling please
Be excited, be happy
Watch leaves dance on trees
The walls that enclose you
Suffocate, I know
But the sun keeps on shining
My sister-self.

They look at me strangely
I want to cry
I'm so bitter and angry
And you want to die
The walls that enclose you
Smother you, I know
And the world keeps on turning
My sister-self.

I am so angry
I feel so sad
I hold your warm hand
I leave you behind

How can you keep going
You are so strong
I would spit at society
If I were forgotten so long
The walls that enclose you
Can be broken down I know
I hope the world will be listening
My sister-self
I will tell them what you're feeling
My sister-self
Have courage in waiting
My sister...myself.

Dear friends,

I met a 24-year-old woman (my age) on my journey to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and I really connected with her. She would talk with me quietly when everyone else was away...haltingly, slowly, but firmly...and the things she would say would hurt so much.

I'm so free, and she can't go out of the house on her own. Her brother wanted to go and get a job that paid well in another town, but couldn't leave her alone in the house (that's the culture of the area they live in), and so he blames her for not getting the job, and sometimes she wishes she had never been born. She wants to travel but she can't. She wants to see the world, but she can't. She wants to help other people but she can't. So she sits in the house and weaves beautiful baskets so she won't go crazy.

People in the West waste their freedom, she said. That's so profound and so true.

I think - I think I've promised her somewhere in my mind to tell people. I don't know how, but I'm going to get this message out. I wrote the song above in a 15-minute-all-alone-in-a-dark-house orgy of battle-with-sad, and I share it with you because I think it gets across some of how I feel about our two worlds - Zekya's and mine.

Thank you for reading it.