“Tongue of the Silent”
They tell me,
that if I do not speak the words of my blood,
then I am not of it.
That if my mouth forgets,
my veins must lie.
That if my tongue is empty,
my soul is foreign.
But I remember.
I remember the lullabies I never heard,
the alphabets burned before I could learn them,
the voices in kitchens that fell silent
when soldiers passed by.
I remember the names whispered in fear,
and the graves marked in borrowed tongues.
I remember –
without speaking.
They tell me,
that silence is betrayal.
But I say:
silence is what they gave me.
And survival is how I answered.
I carry Kurdistan
not in my grammar,
but in my grief.
Not in fluency,
but in fire.
So let them test me.
Let them question.
And I will open my mouth
and speak
in the only Kurdish I was allowed to inherit:
longing.