For Nadia Murad
And every fighter like her
“I want to be the last girl in the world with a story like mine.”
― Nadia Murad, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State
Let me soothe your pain
Your unimaginable journey
From the dungeon of rapists
To a horizon of peace
You built with your bare hands
Hands that carry still
The fragrance of your mother’s hands
That left behind in your little palms
Not seeds of flowers to decorate your hair they call exotic
But seeds of swords to cut throats of tyranny
So let me soothe your pain
Your voice cracking today
Your eyes somewhere far away
Because of vanishing roads
Your nieces still in cages
Your people still on boats in oceans of nowhere
Your pleas lost in an abyss built by a blind world
Let me soothe you today
With a simple poem
A few words
That cry with you
That walk by your side
That merge with your voice
To make it louder
To make it heard through a million big bangs
To erupt as volcanoes
And make a pyre of
What robbed you of your flowers.
~
Vaishali Paliwal
