In Memory of the Pakistanis, Dead, Who Should Say This in My Place

By Mah-ro Khan

Now they call them dirty wars

As if war has ever been clean

Conducting wars on a different continent

Do you think death is soluble in water

The ocean washes away blood not sins

Do you know Muslims

Believe that if you willingly enable the sin it is as though you have committed it

This means

You earned the torment for every death you manufactured

Even if your privileged hands never cradled a gun

Sweatshops and remote control drones and covert operations

Your evolving methods of murder do not lessen our grief

Rearranging whole governments

As if my homeland is your personal game of Jenga

Puppet masters are still responsible for their instruments

Do you know Muslims

Fear that there are sins so unforgivable

They can only be accounted for with eternal punishment in the afterlife

One of these sins is worshipping a replacement for God

I used to think this only applied to idols

Now I think it means money

You will be punished for theft of many things, but most importantly

For the theft of things that cannot be held

What punishment befits the robbing of innocence

The vandalism of religion

The extortion of souls

Do you know Muslims

Bury the dead without caskets so their bodies can return

That even in death we feed life

Whereas you in life have bred nothing but death

 

Mah-ro Khan is a student, scientist, and writer affiliated with Spitshine Poetry. She exists at the intersection of Muslim and first generation Pakistani American. She writes to keep words from building up inside her and because she cannot defeat her demons with swords. Mah-ro is currently learning how to live life at the University of Texas at Austin.