The City’s Unburnt Verse

The city was screaming. No name, No day, Just smoke, Dust, And a collage of those voices Which were neither counted in statistics, Nor in history. Every street was a throat — Suffocating, Frightened, Yet speaking.

The city was no longer silent. But the voices still Struck against the walls And returned.

There, a poem was born. Not from a womb, Nor from a book. It was made of smoke. Of glass shards, Tears, And the faded ink of an old slogan. Some called it “leftist,” Some “imbalanced.” Some “garbage.”

But it was just a poem — Like a poem saved In the sound of a siren.

On the hospital wall was the shadow of a poem. Someone had written in blood — “I am not dying, I am becoming a poem.” The doctors wiped it off. The government checked CCTV footage. The media said: “Art in support of terrorists.” But what was written, Could not be erased.

The poem had left the wall, Now it resided in people’s bones.

What the city called peace, was actually fear. People avoided each other’s eyes. Before asking for a house number, Religion was asked. The national anthem echoed in schools, But poetry was called “illegal literature.” A child had asked: “Ma’am, is poetry anti-national?” Ma’am was silent. Her eyes were moist. As if she too had burned a poem — Deep within her soul.

The police were afraid of poetry. Because it wasn’t a weapon — Yet it was effective. Because it wasn’t gunpowder — Yet it ignited. Because it didn’t ask questions — It just silenced answers.

The city’s roads now swallowed poems. Whoever spoke, Disappeared. Whoever wrote, Was erased. Whoever remained silent, Was considered alive. But poetry does not remain silent.

It sprouted in the cracks of walls, Sat on tombstones, Or hummed un-stitched on the lips of a girl from the slum.

One day the city saw the poem. It was on the back of a truck. Written in white paint: “Your development stands on my death.” People took photos, Posted on Instagram. Then forgot. But the poem remained there — In the dust of the vehicle, Under the tires, At every turn — Trampling its own words.

At a red light, the poem wept. A beggar standing at the traffic signal Repeated the same line to every car: “I am also human.” No one opened a window. No one heard the poem. But in the traffic police’s pocket That line was still folded — Which he had stolen from a wall once.

Poetry never goes to jail. Because it cannot be imprisoned. It emerges from paper And transforms into a woman’s anger. Or into the bowed shoulders of a laborer. Sometimes it becomes a silent complaint On the wall of a courthouse. Sometimes in a journalist’s hiccup.

And finally… The city slept. The TV turned off. The stage empty. The crowd gone. But the poem remained. Under a broken slipper, In a scratched poster’s layer, On a child’s lips — Who hadn’t yet learned to speak, But whose eyes were repeating something: “I am a poem. Do not burn me. I am your history — Which was spoken Before it was written.”

Footnote: Next time the city screams — At the metro station, in parliament, or on your mobile screen — Pay attention… It won’t be noise. It will be poetry. Born in the city of screams — Truth’s most delicate, And most powerful child.