Each time you call me Turkish,
a bullet is pressed into the chamber of my silence.
You think it’s only a word —
but words can kill long before metal does.
You cock the hammer with your tongue,
spit the syllables like shrapnel,
and wonder why my eyes burn like gunpowder.
Do you think I don’t count the shots?
Do you think I don’t hear the ricochet
in the bones of my name?
I am not your mislabelled target.
My blood runs in rivers older than your maps,
my language walks mountains
that your borders cannot cage.
Every lie you fire at me
is another shell casing on the floor —
but the barrel is hot in your hands,
and the smoke stings your own eyes first.
Call me once more, and know this:
you are not shooting at me.
You are shooting at the truth,
and the truth has never bled for you.