“Mama!” she cries.
“Mama” is fumbling with blue embroidery.
“Mama! They locked us out!”
I’m the princess of Bangladesh,
Pink, orange, gold, as my sari twirls around.
1911, a crackling sound,
Ashes to ashes, “You have to jump down!”
Ashes in the Asch building, a fire alarm sounds,
“Stay in your seats!” but as they turn around-
“Nothing is wrong! You have to calm down!”
Royal fingers pricked and bruised,
But they couldn’t choose,
Stitching shirts is all you can do in this town.
Meat in your pea soup, better than selling yourself,
Instead we sell dreams, blue jeans, and tees
To teens like you and me across a whole sea.
Walmart said, “How could we know? 100 or 200
dead?
What’s the difference?
We’ve sold our souls
To a higher power, the American dream!”
The Tarzeen factory helps Bangladesh gleam
While their profit doubles by 5,000,000 an hour.
“Mama!” she cries, “I’m burning alive!”
“Keep working child! Those 3 cents get us by!”
Ashes to ashes, 112 bodies found,
Forgotten screams of children as flames lick the ground.
What will it take?
1000 bodies? 1000 princesses taken by tyrants, out of steel palaces that lock
From the inside?
What will it take?
1000 poems by girls like me protesting this evil, when all it takes is a look at the label,
you say it’s not slavery, it’s only cheap labor!
Ashes to ashes,
1911 to 2012
And we still have atrocities like fires that swell up to the heavens
where the princesses rise,
Thrown from their castles up to the sky,
While CEO’s like Mike Duke get fat in their mansions
And thrive.
No fire escape? It’s not century 20, but you have girls working 20 hour days
not even in their 20’s?
Ashes to asches, they all fell down.
Rest in peace Bangladesh Princess.
Remember the fire of 2012
Remember the girls who endured or died in hell
For the cheap t-shirts we ¬buy for our kids, our partners, ourselves.