Don’t Use Her Against Me
(You are still doing it, and I can feel your power)
Don’t use my mother against me,
no matter if you are an African-American
or a Sub-Saharan African.
You are still doing it.
And I can feel your power.
You are still manipulating her.
She was my mother
before she was your metaphor.
Before she was a silence you could reshape,
before her hands became your platform
to stand on.
I’m already crushed
under a history I never asked for.
European hands drew my fate —
now you come,
rising in your own right,
but I see your gaze
and feel it press me down too.
I don’t need more voices
telling me who I am.
I don’t need more shadows
cast on what little light I have.
Yes, you’ve suffered.
But so have I.
And while the world listens to you now,
I’m still screaming into locked rooms
with no ears left for my name.
So don’t use my mother
as a bridge.
Don’t speak over me
with her breath.
I am Kurdish.
I am wounded.
And I refuse
to kneel beneath another story
that forgets mine.