The Storm Inside

“Under the dark shades of the one I have lost I have come again to the city of a tribe lost. Searching the earth taken under the fabric white Where children had buried their toys and lost. The trees are on fire melting the winter frost And night shedding its dark, but the beloved is lost.”

- Mohammad Tabish

Dear,

I am writing this with a heart heavier than ever before. I have cried. I have shouted. I have walked alone in silence and none of it is enough to express the rage and sorrow I feel after what happened in Pahalgam. Our beloved land , the land of pine forests, of rolling meadows, of streams that once carried laughter, is once again drenched in the blood of innocents.

Our meadows, once filled with the footsteps of lovers and pilgrims, now echo with the crackle of gunfire. Our skies, once blue with the endless promises of spring, are now dark with smoke, thick with helplessness, heavy with mourning.

How long after all? How long will we keep paying the price of crimes we never committed? How long will we carry the burden of someone else’s hatred, someone else’s war, someone else’s politics? How long will we bury our friends, our families, our dreams, while those responsible, sit comfortably in safe havens across the border, sipping tea, plotting maps, reciting hollow slogans that cost them nothing but cost us everything?