“Lines They Drew”
They say:
You are too mixed to have a land.
But they forget —
the ones with borders carved for them
by ink, not blood.
By empire, not soul.
They say:
You have Persian roots, Armenian bones,
a whisper of Aegean winds in your name.
As if that unroots me.
As if that unmakes a Kurd.
Let me remind them:
The German with Italian Aosta eyes
does not apologize for flags.
The Frenchman born of Berber mothers
does not beg for his anthem.
But I —
I who speak in the tongue
my grandmother hid beneath her breath,
I who carry mountains in my memory —
am told to shrink.
They tried to plant me in Nevşehir.
But I grew toward Hakkâri,
toward the Bektashi flame,
toward the stone songs of Hawraman.
My roots do not need permission.
My homeland is not a theory.
It is written
in the silence before sunrise,
in the footsteps of the exiled,
in the lullabies of women who never forgot.
Kurdistan lives.
Not on a map.
But in every soul that dares to say:
I am.