Every time I try to write
Every time I pick up a pen to
write a love poem, the ink
oozes blood.
It drifts away to the port of Yangon,
where a loud bang invoked silence.
With bodies now there for show,
A mother with her children—
Their fault: to be born,
Their fault: to hope for freedom.
It reached the camps of Gaza,
Distraught – it tried mixing with
The abundance of blood – The blood never
dries there. Yet, not far off, it has. It has
dried in their veins; only their eyes remain red.
Every time I pick up a pen to
write a love poem, the ink
oozes blood.
It is grey now, slowly turning into the void
— the suffocating nothingness that millions
now endure. They scream, they wallow, they cry
— but their voices are lost in the winds of indifference.
"All we wanted was our basic rights,
was it too much to ask?*"
There was a time when the Ukrainian sky
was not red. When the twinkling lights above
were stars, wished upon as they fell. Now,
they wish for life from something other than
falling stars. The blood is not welcomed
in that territory.
Every time I pick up a pen to
write a love poem, the ink
oozes blood.
* Mahjoob Naurozi, “What happened to the women who took on the Taliban?” (BBC, 15.06.2024)
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