On Our Watch

By Naazish YarKhan

And we, 
We write of lovers squabbles
While Rohingya women
Men and children
Are cut open by machetes
Childhoods ripped open
Blood curdling through streets
And we,
We are too squeamish to even read about their reality
While their lives 
tremble and quake
in fear of every sound and
every movement,
Every moment
That death is a better alternative to what they see, hear and fear.
On our watch.
Day after day.
Year after year.
And we,
We write of lost hopes
And struggles
As if we even know 
What that really means. 
We, in our comfort zones,
As complicit as those wielding machetes.

Naazish YarKhan is internationally published contributor to NPR, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Chicago magazine and more. Read all her poems on her Instagram account.