"*****, filthy, subhuman creatures"
They don’t care if you’re doctors,
lawyers or teachers
They’ll kidnap your children,
spit on your soul
Terrorize your family,
kick in your door
They’ll drug your mind with propaganda
Cut out your tongue if you try to stand up
They’ll beat you till you bleed
But we never plead for mercy,
No we never claim defeat
They’ll kick you under the desk,
send you slamming into the wall
They’ll laugh and kick you harder,
if you try to get up, if you try to crawl
But our crawling brings us to our knees,
Slowly, we rise up to our feet
And we’ll face the persecution
The vile, mind-prostitution
They **** our women and our children,
Just as much as they **** our minds
****** our emotion,
But they will not ****** our pride
Our dignity is our iron,
Our religion is our crime.
But you cannot destroy us
Believe me, many have tried.
There is silver in our blood,
Gold in our soul
Oil paint coats our skin
And our words swallow you whole
Our hearts are poets,
Constructing your fears
Our thoughts are daggers and arrows
Our minds are cunning engineers
You can hang us from the ceiling
You can throw us in a tank of gas
But our lungs are as pure as snow
And this pain will never last
We have risen from the ashes
Hear our battle cries
We do not yield weapons
In silence,
we ride
*-lf-
This is a very personal poem, about the human rights violations occurring in my parents' homeland (Iraq).
© Leelan Farhan 2013