The Tongue That Is Not Mine
for the land I love, and the voice I don’t claim
This soil is mine —
cracked under my barefoot dreams,
stitched with the green of my mother’s hands,
bathed in the sun that calls us Kurds.
The hills, the rivers,
they whisper in my blood.
They say, this land is yours,
and I know — yes, I know — it is.
But from a cave deeper than memory,
a voice rises.
Not mine.
Not ours.
It does not call me child.
It sings in Gorani —
with vowels shaped by a people
I do not name,
because I dare not steal.
Let the Armenians claim the Gorani language.
Let them gather its broken syllables
and carry it like an heirloom
etched into their breath.
The land is Kurdish.
The language is not.
It rests beside us, not within us.
An old ghost, still proud,
refusing to wear my name.
So I let it be.
Let it sing in peace.
I walk my land with love —
but I do not touch what is not mine.