taste spices and tragedy in the air

country mine, born of violence

wretched beautiful creature, you are

pakistan a name I now hear only

in dry clinical language on the news

that talk of suffering and disease and religious shootings in the street and

I stop and listen and think, yes but

keep my country’s name out of your filthy mouth 

country mine

where cracked streetlights flicker beneath the weight of dusk

where girls fear man as they kneel before our god

yet to me you are

crimson and lavender and lapis thread woven

into tarps that flutter on the street

the roar of warmth on my face

as I step out into the sun

yet ten years and ten thousand kilometres apart

what will I see now?

if I ever return home

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A 19 year old Pakistani immigrant currently studying International Politics. He enjoys writing to the void under the cloak of midnight.