Sameer Mehrab

Here I am

Saddened but not broken

Shackled but not hindered

 

I fell from your blows,

Harsh and continuous,

I fell but not subdued

My gaze still upwards

Aspiring for the sun

 

I heard one of us fell today

Darkness consumed another son of light

To stop what has been heralded,

For quite sometime

 

A day will come

As bright as the sun

And banish the darkness

And all the monsters it has awakened

This wounded shackled body

And thousands others

Will herald that day

 

We all belong to same tribe

Don’t you recognize us?

Our wounds, blood-stained faces

The thorny crown

The sound of the dragging cross

Broken, beaten bodies with unshaken resolve

Yes, we all belong to the same tribe

With many faces and many names

We belong to the same race

Under your lashes

Under the bunks of slave ships

Sold like cattle in slave markets

In cotton fields with hands once mine

Now grotesque with thousand cuts,

Attained by patting your greed

For years on and on

 

Yes, it was me

Who wrote on prison walls:

“If there is a God he will have to beg my forgiveness”

 

Yes, you threw me in a dungeon

I have seen the darkest of darkest

Monsters and places you’ve created

To brand me with a cross,

With a star, or a random scar

With a thorny crown

 

You expected to humiliate me

But look

I have risen from the ashes of Auschwitz

From under bunks of slave ships

From salve markets and cotton fields

 

I am the missing one

I am the killed and dumped

I am the son of man

I am the slave

I am the prisoner

I am the one you executed today

Here I am

Saddened but not broken

Shackled but not hindered

Banished but not forgotten

 

Here I am

Still calling the shots

Under your lashes

Still holding high the thorny crown

Once meant to inflict shame

I now raise as my banner of rebellion

 

Here I am

Calling for rebellion

From the dungeon

From cotton fields

From the slave ship

From the cross

From gas chambers

 

Today you killed a rebel

Yet, rebellion lives on

The rebellion I started,

Under your nose

 

Don’t miss posts from Balochistan Times!

We don’t spam!

+ posts

Sameer Mehrab is a writer and co-founder of Balochistan Times. He often depicts Balochistan's socio-political dilemmas in his fiction and poetry. He is based in Canada.

Leave a Comment