“They tell me the first snowfall has arrived,
But I wouldn’t know.
I can’t see past the blood soaked concertina walls they have put up.
They say the tree branches are swinging under the weight of the fluffy white snow,
But I wouldn’t know.
I can’t see past all the new guns and jack boots.
They have stolen my earth and my sky,
My trees and my air,
They have changed the names of my streets and declared my language a bastard,
They have changed the locks to my front door,
My keys no longer work.
They say I was never really here.
But what I know is
that though I travelled the world
I was never really anywhere but here,
Buried under the first snow.
You exhumed my body from my home,
But
Not my soul.
Never my soul.”
Kashmiri Saba Mahjoor