🔥 You Can Proclaim the Date, But Not the Fire
You wrote it on your paper.
You sealed it with your office.
You called it “Nowruz,”
you called it “new spring,”
and you called us “diverse communities.”
But you forgot
who had to whisper the word Newroz
through prison bars.
You forgot
who lit fires on rooftops
while soldiers watched.
You forgot
the languages buried beneath your “unity,”
and the songs banned while you
printed posters of celebration.
We don’t need your proclamations.
We don’t need your polished smiles
or your multicultural brochures.
We need land.
We need return.
We need justice that isn’t dressed in spring metaphors.
You say Nowruz belongs to everyone.
We say:
You cannot globalize a wound.
You cannot turn our ashes into decorations.
You can proclaim the date.
But you will never own the fire.
It belongs to the ones
who were told to forget—
and remembered anyway.