War: Not the cliché ugly, bloodthirsty monster that turns your perfect life over and leaves. But the ugly, bloodthirsty monster that turns your perfect life over..and stays. And destroys everything you love in the process.
I belong to a nation whose anthem was silenced amid roars of bombs. Who wore coffin to bed and took bullets for breakfast. And that's the thing about war: it takes everything that matters, stabs you with it over and over till you're left with nothing to lose, and leaves you alive as an apology. And you don't have a say in it.
So you pick yourself up and gather enough fragments of courage to open your tired eyes. Holding your tyrant by the collar, you pierce your gaze into his, and tell him that you stand undefeated. But look around. Look at what you've become. Your land has been decorated with mines instead of roses for so long, you didn't realize when your children replaced marbles with grenades. Their childhood poems are now slogans of war. They still laugh. And they still cry. Only the latter happens more often.
My children don't know how to dream of a peaceful sunrise; without getting woken up by collapsing roofs. They don't recognize the soothing smell of kehwa unless infused with gunpowder. Or that the flag in my drawing room wasn't always stained red.
My tyrant loves me, though. He speaks volumes about the unique vermillion of my henna-printed hands. And praises my ethnic forehead concealed with silver-glazed ornaments. But then he rips them off like the embellished flag on my chest and flaunts my culture like a prisoner of war.
But these flames of conflict have been lighting me up for too long. And 'what the fire doesn't burn, it hardens'. My lullaby is not anymore the calm of the ocean; but the tremendous thunder engraved with the praise of my martyrs. My morning call for prayer isn't but a rallying cry for battle. I'll print on my hands the tales of my ancestors till the tyrant's thirst runs dry but my veins don't. I'll carry my marbles till they outsell the weapon. And I'll plant roses on my overturned fields till they outnumber the mines.
He left me alive and I rose above the ashes. Unapologetic. My orphaned children do cry, but they'll laugh more often. My widowed mothers do shed tears, but only to strengthen the pedestal of my hope. Because though raised amidst blood, fear, and terror, this progeny of war is still my promised future.
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Cover credits: https://www.instagram.com/hassanmasood7/
