This Is Not a Costume
You erased me from within —
called me a “mountain Turk,”
a “provincial Iranian,”
a mistake inside your borders.
And still, I stayed.
I held the name even when you stripped it from our IDs.
But now you —
you who never shared this blood,
never spoke this pain,
never wandered the hills with silence in your throat —
you wear my flag
like it’s up for grabs.
You speak my language
like you found it in a market.
You claim my roots
as if they were forgotten relics,
not living wounds still bleeding.
I let the Turks bury me.
I let the Iranians rename me.
Because at least they did it
in the dark rooms of empire.
But you —
you arrive clean,
proud,
unscarred.
And call yourself
what we had to die to remain.
This is not your costume.
This is not your accent to imitate.
This is not your story to decorate your bio.
I am Kurdish.
And I am not yours to borrow, African.
You are not the first one to breathe Kurdish fires behind your fake identity.