By Fairuj Afreen

You say they will take what is ours
The jobs, the ability, the theories,
Answer me when I ask if they can conquer
The love we share with our wrists.

Can they seize the way my teachers talk with their hands
Imitating pictures drawn with their fingers as they speak,
Or the way my friend waves in a crowd
Just so a ripple of familiarity reaches me.

The way my father scrapes and slurps
The pool of daal at the end of his meal,
The texture of my mother’s saree
As it dries to a crisp under Dhaka’s heat.

Could they take the freedom I felt as a child
As I wandered on the rooftops imagining kites as my wings,
Or gulps of tap water that quenched my thirst
After running around the friendly alleys.

The touch of comfort after a difficult day
When a loved one pats my back gently,
The feeling of having done something right
When a street dog stops to smile at me.

Ask them to generate the wish on my sibling’s face
As they blow out the candles on the cake I had baked,
Or to count the memories in the folds beside my grandma’s eyes as she smiles
When she rejoices in her family visiting her.
Ask it to make a home out of somebody’s arms
Without building walls that suffocate them.

They will take what is ours you say,
But what human hands can offer are much more than what a perfect prompt can convey.