“The Clean Ones”
by Kurdish Warrior
You washed your hands
before they were even dirty.
Tucked your guilt
beneath mountains and clocks.
Polished your neutrality
until it sparkled like snow
over graves you never claimed.
You were there.
You saw it.
You heard the trains.
You counted the gold.
But you said:
“We are not Germany.”
And that was enough
to let the fire pass through your borders
without burning your name.
You made your banks into vaults
for other people’s screams.
You turned silence
into a currency.
And when it was over,
you looked at the ashes and said:
“At least we’re still clean.”
You weren’t the murderer.
But you held the coat.
You weren’t the sword.
But you sold the sheath.
And now—
while I have to befriend the colonizer,
smile through their accents,
swallow their alphabets,
you get to walk free,
even though you should’ve stood with the Germans
if only to share the weight
you pretended wasn’t yours.
You sip chocolate in quiet hills,
while ghosts
try to remember
if your hands
were ever truly empty.