Arzu Runs Away

Arzu Runs Away
© Surazeus
2025 01 11

Arzu runs away from her middle school 
when Chinese children mock her funny name 
and call her cow who eats weeds in the hills 
because she is the ugly Uyghur cow, 
then sits alone beside the rocky stream 
and plays happy tunes on her old tambur. 

Arzu runs away from her broken home 
when her drunk father, the town garbage man, 
beats her mother to death in his blind rage, 
then crouches behind the street vendor stall 
where Meryem asks her to help boil the noodles 
eaten by Chinese soldiers who leer at her. 

Arzu runs away from the soldier barracks 
where she went to play songs on her tambur 
till the Chinese soldiers groped at her thighs, 
then sits on cracked steps of the empty mosque 
closed down by the communist government 
and whispers Surat Al-Fatiha prayer. 

Arzu runs away from the empty mosque 
when the old man smelling of rotten fish 
tries to drag her into the tangled bushes 
while begging her to be his humble wife, 
then knocks on door where the matchmaker lives 
and cries while looking at pictures of men. 

Arzu runs away from the big clean house 
where she was imprisoned after the wedding 
and forced to clean toilets and mop stone floors, 
tricked into being fake wife of the merchant, 
then walks narrow road in the Altai Mountains 
where she sees white horses in the swirling mist. 

Arzu runs away from the dank horse ranch 
where she mucked stalls and carried bales of hay 
for six years till the drunk son of the rancher 
began crawling in her bed every night, 
then lies pregnant on the train station floor 
where she gives birth to the loud baby boy. 

Arzu runs away from the hospital, 
abandoning the baby with no name, 
sure the nurses will find him a good home, 
then sits on street corners in Urumqi 
to play old sad folk tunes on her tambur 
while people toss coins and bills on her coat. 

Arzu runs away from the snakehead gang 
who forced her to work as a prostitute 
for twelve years in hotels across the land, 
then shouts for help in the large plaza crowd, 
but they strike her head with a broken brick, 
then she lies bleeding to death in the sun.