Featured Image: Alizeh Ahmad

We will win.

We will win. We will win. We will win.

“It is in our nature, in our blood”

Sticks and stones will break my bones

When stones are beaten into the skulls of children for 40 years.

When sticks are stabbed into the sockets of men, women, and children.

Your arms must be so tired of being cramped in the offensive

Your voice must be so coarse from screams for help

Your hearts so weary from false promises.

Within the graveyard lies a people

 Who want to close their eyes and listen to Ahmad Zahir.

Bearing the burden of the world does not allow for idle listening.

To the world they are undeserving.

Within the graveyard there have been attempts to create light

The delectable dishes, the melodious music, the gracious gatherings

A tracing of lyricists, poets, and artists that stretches as far as the milky way

Which they reflect about in their epics.

Overtime poppies will grow in the graveyard

Do poppies grow in with blood?

Do poppies grow in soil made of bone dust?

But I hope — maybe — tulips will grow

What’s in a win? What’s in a win? What’s in a win?

The taste of victory lies bitters on the lips of Afghans.

The remedy to forever wars is to seek solace in a win

Because what is left when sober is more paralyzing.

The graveyard of empires is a vacuum

Whose light is ignored

With yells unanswered

With souls forgotten.