Don’t Call Me Yours
Again,
another voice from the West
telling me
“The Kurds were Albanian once.”
As if I’m a relic
in a gallery they curate,
as if my blood
is theirs to claim
and erase in the same breath.
They call me Turkish
like it’s a slur,
like it’s proof I don’t belong
to the very soul they want to steal.
They silence me,
then speak for me.
They smother my name
and wear my ancestors
like borrowed coats
they’ll toss when trends change.
You do not get to tell me
what I am.
I am not your origin myth.
I am not your convenient cousin.
I am not a line in your revisionist fantasy.
I am Kurdish.
I carry centuries of being
erased and renamed—
but never broken.
You can’t take my roots
and deny me my voice.
You can’t call me Turkish
while clinging to my Kurdish history
like it’s a badge you earned.
I am not yours.
And I never will be.