By Roha Saleem for Invisiblites
When we are all united by religion,
Then why are we divided by ethnicity?
We were born with freedom,
yet torn apart by resistance.
Our atoms have always urged for ilm,
yet we have been shaken by endless identity quests.
No matter what the thirst still lingered,
among the piles of the dumping pit,
which were full of foul,
yet hope awakened deep,
Into the books buried beneath
the heaps of litter.
We memorized an alphabet styles, one by one,
with the pictures appended.
Wherever you aim to learn,
hope follows you.
May it be in the slums one lives,
or in the castles where nobility is sustained through intellect.
The thirst grows, and fate escorts you to the castle,
not as a noble, but as a servant.
A chance to learn,
maybe not from the initials,
but through communication,
you feel accomplished.
But societal stigmas always roar the loudest,
in the form of the inferiority one will always carry.
Yet it’s a promise to the state,
from a stateless, that:
"I will keep your fishing profession alive,
along with my rage to conquer all fields of knowledge.";
(You can sabotage a dream, but not the energy of a Bangladeshi living in your city.)
Roha Saleem is a student of NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi.