Wounded Flag

By Nahid Fattahi

Pools of blood everywhere
bright red
as the middle stripe
of your wounded flag
drained, gloomy
for she has been let down
too many times
her green stripe
has lost its luster
mourning the death of
your children,
her black stripe
has turned somber.
Your womb
has given birth
to too many miseries.
When did the story of
Cain and Abel
turned into
your tragic reality?
You are hurt.
No river of tears
can wash away
these prints of disgrace
from your once rich history.
For your soil has become
the cradle of demise
to too many lives.
Do you wonder,
if God too is hurt?
Your soul in pain,
for the world is
aloof to your sorrows
they only gawk
to count the number of
each loss
to casually refer to
as causalities.
Oath to unify
your broken nation.
For we are
in this together,
in search of light
in the far end of
this dark tunnel.

 

Nahid Fattahi is an Afghan-American human rights activist, writer, and published poet. Her day job is as a Marketing Consultant at Kaiser Permanente, and she moonlights as a clinical/counseling psychology graduate student at Santa Clara University.