The Afghan

I wake up every day on the desert sand

I look around and see towering mountains

Like vigilant soldiers, observing my every move

And reporting it to an invisible boss...



The desert had always been my home

And I’ve always been a playful child on her lap

With sand hills as my playmates

And the sun being our de-facto referee



I grew up in the hot, arid, yet charming desert

Accepting graciously the gifts it had offered me

It had fed and nourished me and helped me grow

Free from the claustrophobic confines of the city...



My desert and me, we have been pals

For as long as I can remember,

I have no hesitation to say and ascertain

My ownership over my desert...



And yet, of late, things have been changing

So much that I don’t really know what’s happening

There are a lot of new entrants into my desert

And they haven’t bothered to let me know their purpose...



I see brooding, dark flying birds in the sky

They cloud the sky, and darkness,

Darkness, like the night covers my desert

They keep flying around in circles, day and night...



After a lot of asking around, I get a reply

These planes are here to shoot my people

Well, their official intention is slightly different

They are actually waging a war on terror, it seems...



I do understand that a few of my brethren

Have lost the way of Islam

And have taken a road

That is best left not taken...



To think about it, they did not take this by choice

They were just pawns in a game, a great game

Played by powers unimaginably rich and powerful

Trying to get richer and more powerful



So we were given arms to fight,

Fight an enemy with whom we had no enmity

And were trained to develop feelings of radical hostility

In direct contrast to our hospitable nature



And so we were forced to become who we are,

Now the world calls us terrorists,

It was the same world that wanted us to fight for freedom

And had made us believe we were Jihadists



Every day the planes shoot down my brethren

The ones that have taken up arms to fight

And the ones who have lost their arms in fight

Die together right in front of my eyes



We are powerless to stop this killing

We are powerless to overcome our attackers

So we do what we do best

We try to protect ourselves by hiding within the caves



Our home has thankfully been blessed with these caves

If it wasn’t for them, we would have been an annihilated race

While the world calls us a primitive tribe

We are proud of our tribal ancestry



For though we fight, we fight our wars by ourselves,

We do not use innocent victims as scapegoats

And fight what is called a proxy war

And neither do we kill who we once protected



I write this as I watch more of my brothers die

I write this in the hope that it will wake the world up

I write this to talk of the misery that we go through every day

I write this in the hope that this inhuman act will end some day...



I shall now go back to fight someone's war,

And to lay down my life to satisfy someone’s greed

For I am the son of the desert

Who always lives for others need...



I am the Afghan, the true son of the desert,

The desert sands run through my blood

And I die, letting my blood join the sands

And I die, fighting a needless war.