I shall not speak,
mouth stitched, eyes blind,
limbs amputated.
Bombs, artillery shells and missiles
are allowed to drop on me,
but I don’t dare
to drop my words
in return.

I am sensitive content,
more disturbing than the shrapnel
of a USA-made bomb.
More dangerous is my tongue
than the world’s strongest weapons.

I am collateral damage.
My death is a number,
A statistic in the daily news,
Some flesh, collected, weighed,
Then dropped in a grave.

I am homeless in my homeland,
pitching a tent
next to the debris of my house,
clinging to a vague hope
of rebuilding from my ruins.

I am a tangled thread of question marks.
My value is conditional, dependent,

as if my existence on privileged land
makes my blood worth more, spilled,
than the same blood still in veins elsewhere.
But it has no value at all.

I am a child who has lost her way,
uncertain of her next destination.
I ask my compass to lead me
to a place to soothe my shattered soul.
It only knows one path
leading to my mother’s grave.

But I shall not speak,
mouth stitched, eyes blind,
limbs amputated.
Bombs, artillery shells and missiles
are allowed to drop on me,
but I don’t dare
to drop my words
in return.