LIFE

By Qurat Ul Ain Akhtar

(From Multan)

Life is a never ending maze

Along the way are interventions you need to face

Be firm as you take each road sealed off by haze

And stay well-founded in this lifelong race

Its a logic you must discover

A vital mystery you need to uncover

And from each downfall you need to recover

To avoid self-conciousness from taking over

In life, failure is necessary

Along with it are crucial decisions that may vary

There’d be times that you’d falter unwantedly

But never hesitate to start over conidently

Don’t fear life when it challenges you

You have to fight back when you needed to

And remember to not cross the line too

For chances are limited with no residue

Life is a one-way ticket

You have to survive in order to make it

Remember to smile and cherish every bit

And live while aiming without limit

My Blind Life

I painstakingly strive for somewhat,

ornamenting my life

I don’t see any opportunity to settle

Oh my refugee life!

Does it consent me to go ahead?

I am kept in refugee camps

Like pressing into a hole underground

Ability doesn’t work anymore

But along waits for opportunity.

I imagine, I am a star

But the cloud is under me,

Consequently, the sparkling can’t be seen

I am a blind star

I am a shadowless tree,

All because of I am a refugee.

If the world would fullfil my hunger,

I will be revealed as a man

The world needs for future

I would make brightened it.

I don’t want to surviving life

Just want to fly in the sky

To see what this world actually looks like,

Or, to be a bud of flowers

Which many yearn for.

Island of Fear

On the Bashan Char island,

When I sleep at night,

The waves start roaring

Fear in my heart begins gnawing

Every night, I become dead.

Every morning I am live again.

I ask for help but no one to hear me

I often think to end my life jumping into river.

Yet hope still pushes me to survive

Just to see my motherland again

That’s why I am still alive here

Although it is an island of fear.

Rape of Impunity

I’m a young Rohingya girl

I was gang-raped

my parents were massacred

by the Burmese military

during the crackdown in August of 2017.

Three years has been passed,

I am still crying not for my pain

but just to hear the world that:

violence, discrimination and injustice

are ended over me and my people.

My mother and I were raped together

My father was killed

My brothers were shot to dead

And I’m a single, survived from

the horror of injustice.

My village was burnt down

Hundred of my villagers were massacred

It’s too horrible for me

to survive a single life

in my village where I grow up.

Red and black into my nation

where trees cann’t change the color

but the color was changed into red

with the blood of my body

and it’s become black and dark.

In that very year,

my blood gets a big hand

to illustrate my painful process

which will be a strong enough

for the world to proof genocide.

My life falls into anxiety

unendurable for my civilians

It make me a fighter

against the injustice and violence

of my bloody Tatmadaw.

It is too hard to forget

and not so easy to admit

and still keep on struggling

but never give up,

I still cry and beg the justice.

Poet’s Note : This poem is dedicated to a Rohingya rape survivor from Gu Dar Pyin massacre carried by Myanmar Tatmadaw against Rohingya villagers in August, 2017.

Tearful Eyes

The world made me blind and deaf

Darkness forces me to jumping,

Even so, I lay down in darkness with sadness.

Can’t see lustrousness anywhere,

My eyes are tearful and mind painful.

The people want to score goal,

I am goalkeeper with broken hands.

Even so, I don’t give up still.

No helper around to land a hand to me

My eyes are tearful and mind painful.

The situation makes me dumb,

I am playing teeth game in mouth.

Even so, gums became blood color

I can’t sway my salty water,

My eyes are tearful and mind painful.