Let Them Ripen

Lule is seven. Her name means flower. She is my mother. She climbs the cherry tree with her older sister. They laugh so loud they don’t hear their grandmother shout “let them ripen! If you eat them all now, the family will never get a taste when they’re ready!”

Lule and her sister are not misaligned with the land, the regime is. There is a crushed ant stuck to her finger crushed onto the bark, onto her finger from the pressure from her excitement they sit on the branch and chew and chew and you’d think they forgot how to swallow the way their cheeks inflated like the gajde, that stomach lining that skin sewn together blown to celebrate. They will celebrate one day but it won’t be for a decade until then they’ll struggle to be full they’ll struggle after too but that’s why they eat so many cherries today sitting in the sky no one told them unripe fruit hurts your stomach how could it hurt if God made them like that oh please I hope nobody heard that they’ll interrogate the elders “what’s this religious propaganda you ’ re feeding the children” they’ll respond “it’s the only food we have.” Her stomach rumbles and she can’t control her little body she’s above the ground and she perches like a bird her insides forfeit those green cherries they fall to the ground Lule and Dranja laugh so loud they don’t hear the bells tolling for their youth

-Kristina Pepaj