Lady Justice by Maliha Iqbal (India, 17)

She was blindfolded
But that wasn’t enough
So they stifled her voice too
In case she should scream for help
When they turned her into
Nothing more than a statue.
Her scales lay rusting in a corner
Until one day a child who had lost

His parents to war
And his hope to hunger
Sat near her and desperately,
Drew a pair of eyes
With a stub of crayon
Right across her blindfold
His tears cut through
The cement forming her cage
And her spirit escaped
She tore off the blindfold
And showed the world
That she carried with her
Not just the scales
But a sword too.



​​Maliha Iqbal is a student and writer from Aligarh, India. Many of her short stories, write-ups, letters and poems have been published in magazines like Livewire (The Wire), Creativity Webzine, Cerebration, Histolit, Countercurrents, Times of India, Freedom Review, ArmChair Journal, Kitaab, Counterview, Good Morning Kashmir, Writers Cafeteria, Café Dissensus, The New Verse News, Borderless Journal, The Palestine Chronicle, The Cadre Journal and Indian Periodical.