Every Nightmare has a Reason

Wait a moment, please

Before you register your pleas.

Wait…not because someone is dead

But we are all dying

Sprinkled by the waves

Our burning flames fade

As ashes we mean nothing

So, why this loathing?

Ah, did you see those kids in the West Bank

Dance as the Twin Towers sank?

Yes, I did.

Yet I cannot hate them

They have bile in their bloodstream

And gunfire in bellies

They were born in wombs

Where the fluid was arsenic.

Today they laugh

They think they have won

For what they have lost

Has often gone unsung.

They care not about leaders

Or pleaders

Life for them is victory

When someone else weeps.

No one is born to kill.

Then something happens

We begin to sharpen knives

And dissect other lives

Our experiments with truth,

A lie.

We lie

On beds of thorn

Sleepless, dreamless, hopeless

And every new morn

We say we are awake

When zombie-like we move

To shake

Pillars of straw.

They fall

We fall with them.

And then we cry in shame

Or apportion blame --

Who is responsible?

A made-to-order terrorist?

Or you?

I?

We?

Elise tucked in her kurta

As she bent down to sweep

She looked up at Mother

And said,

It must be Pakistan that did it.

She watches the telly

She hears the news

But she has her own hates

Like we all do.

The only thing we know is that

Planes flew

And sliced through

The concrete cakes of Manhattan

Amidst smoke and sound

The fury raged elsewhere

Not in the hearts of those that did it

But in each of us

Who choose our enemies

As we forget friends.

Someone said, “Yeh to hote rehta hai”.

I cringed

I still do not know why…

No one does

Though we give reasons

To prevent any treason

Against our souls

But we will remember

Only till we can see the embers

As splintered bodies are lowered into mass graves

No one will think of them as the brave.

The ones that died

Are the ones that were saved.

We are the targets.

We are the knaves.

So, wait!

Don’t grieve so much

That when the tears veil your gaze

People rush to peer into your face

They’ll tell you they have had it worse

They’ll make you feel almost joyous

You’ll lose your sorrow

Your reason to borrow

That curse of Life

Called Tomorrow.