My Country's Not a Terrorist Place

Sixteen bled and Earth exploded; her bosom oozed the blood out drop by drop

The day when innocent squeaks and cries reached from bottom to the top!

Mother Earth never opens the door to her heart without the key

But 16's Black Wind blew through closed windows; lungs had to breathe tragedy!

The number sixteen is for the 16th of December

Where terrorism started for a day to remember!

It just entered without a warning, without telling

With earsplitting noise of shooting and shelling!

Words from this language or any other would never be able to justify

The violence, the oppression and brutality; it would never be able to rectify!

Black powder, smoke and fire cements in hearts the Black Paradise

Where dreams get faded; where everything falls and can never rise!

Has it to be my country, my home, my mother, my love

That has to tolerate more than just enough?

Knives to swords, swords to bullets and bullets to grenades

Has always had to encounter the terror that never fades!

Let me just take you to the dark room of my nation state

Where you will decide if you blame it for spreading terrorism,

If it is the only place where treachery spreads its wings

And has no space for love and affection nor it can ever bring!

A depressed mother with no doubt, can state

How has she breathed and struggled with her ill-fate!

Her son, the green military man of no lack

Had brutally got martyred in 16's Terrorist Attack!

The news shook hearts and quaked the earth

Snatched, ate and swallowed all its mirth!

'Attack on Army Public School' echoed, numbed her feet

Tears welled up, her knees crumbled for that situation to meet!

Wished if she could shut her ears

Longed if she could close her eyes and block the falling building of tears!

Craved, her heart could stop pumping

As the news in her nerves kept on bumping!

Now the dawn dawns with the recall of the days

When she used to blow the kiss of prayers in his ways!

She cries on the prayer mat till her head falls and she faints

Rushes to the cupboard, smells his shirt and so tragically the story she paints!

'Did not he finish his breakfast and leave

Took his bag, gave me a kiss as he always used to give!’

‘And came home not he zealous, but dead

His lips were silent, fingers still and face was blotted red!'

'I wanted to go mad and blind and deaf at once

But my heart had a brain, eyes, ears and a tongue!'

'Our son has left!' Women shouted and screamed

'Fate could be so reckless, I had never ever dreamed!'

At day time she hears his shouts and cries

Sighs; gets startled with every single fall and every single rise!

At night she sits in front of the door waiting for a knock

Poor Love has lost her hunger and even stopped to talk!

Alone at her home though being with husband, mother-in-law

2 p.m., the clock strikes turning her existence stinging and raw!

She prepares one plate extra on the dining table

With the pool of dehydrated tears dancing instable!

Told many a times, 'Your son won't come, open your eyes!'

One day she loses her patience, 'Don't you all be wise!'

'He's here, somewhere! My mischievous kid

Laughs and then screams a cry, 'Oh what to him they did!'

Little Talha’s room is locked for her to enter

But no one locked his essence that is the center!

She has faded herself in his memory, his laughter, that color Red

His still body, his stained shirt, his death-bed!

Her world has flown into the end stream

She hears no Salam, no laughter and no scream!

She is mute, she is half-dead

Her eyes have cemented her fore-head!

How dare I question how dare I point?

That a mother to whom her son was the joint

Has been murdered, deprived of her life, left alone to whine

And taken to mental asylum, registered 'Not fine!'

What can be so tragic that no one gets close to her?

'Darkness' is the only friend with whom she seems to murmur!

Total loss of senses she is going through

Sits in corner of the room, talking to herself and moaning too!

Is this so depressing to clench your heart and tickle your eye?

This is my country my home my mother my love, though has lost the tie!

You won’t ever visit because it’s a terrorist place?

Call it once again, repeat, criticize, disparage; fill the last blank space!

Calling out for help and no one is here

Only the name of Death is close and oh so near!

He was our son, she was our mother

Who will be the next? I or some other?

No I won’t ever cry, I won’t ever say

That my country’s a death valley giving genocides a way!

It is not like other countries, it is Pakistan

Land of love, purity, sacrifice not complimenting sabotage!