Status Updates From If They Come for Us

„my people my people I can't be lost
when I see you my compass
is brown & gold & blood
[…]

my country is made
in my people's image
if they come for you they
come for me too in the dead
of winter […]

our names this country's wood
for the fire my people my people
the long years we've survived the long
years yet to come I see you map
my sky the light your lantern long
ahead & I follow I follow“

„[…] My love
for nature is like my love for most things:
fickle & theoretical. Too many bugs
& I want a divorce.

My love for the past is like my love
for most things. I only feel it when
I leave. […]

Best to stay gone, so I'm always in love.
My gold nails are fake. The floorboards
carry death. My bare feet skirt the shit.“

It wasn't long before we started decorating the gazebo
with fake foliage. Painted leaves stapled to stem,
roses that never wilted. Actual flowers were expensive
& only for funerals. We had too many funerals to waste
flowers. But we loved our story: the gazebo
that dared to live on concrete. The plastic petals.
Always red. Always bright. Never in need of water.“

[Target Audience]
„Everyone wants Kashmir but no one wants Kashmiris.
Aren't I a miracle? A seed that survived the slaughter & slaughters
to come. I think I believe in freedom I just don't know where it is.
I think I believe in home, I just don't know where to look.“

„I wish them a mundane life.
[…]

Loneliness in a bookstore. Gold chapals.
Red kurtas. Walking home, sun

at their backs. Searching the street
for a missing glove. Nothing glorious.

A life. Alive. I promise.

I didn't know I needed to worry
about them
until they were gone.“

Wow… 🥺