They tell me,
calm down,
as if my fire were a fault,
as if silence were obedience.
They say it softly,
like Europe’s lullaby,
to dim the roar of mountains
and drown the pulse of rivers.
But my veins do not know calm.
They carry centuries,
the weight of names erased,
the maps that never showed us.
So let them whisper calm down—
I will answer with storm,
with stone, with song,
with the language they fear most:
the truth that will not quiet.