Tasgut bas (Just fall)
To the child I have yet to hold,
My heart stings knowing my first present to you was my absence. I never stop dreaming of holding you in these long nights. To look in your eyes and to call you mine. I suffer, longing to feel your heartbeat and skin against mine. To feel your breath against my neck, but a red sun rises over Khartoum. The city is burnt out of her skin; her buildings, her vehicles, and her towering offices stand blackened skeletons. Bloodlines are broken, hymens invaded, homes don’t feel safe but the grave. We found shelter in the house of the Lord. But the sound of the gun remains the alarm clock. Hospitals drown in death. Food supplies are blocked. USAID chainsawed on national television to applause. Famine knocks on our doors while the world forgets us. Bodies are in a heap. The shelling never ceases. If there is shelling in the morning, we go to the market after that. If it doesn’t happen, we are forced to sit and wait till the shelling comes, and after it stops, we go and gather what we need for living. It is said that this is the war of dignity; I name it the war of plunderers and thieves. Soldiers leashed to their own greed. Who fired the first shot? no memory can reach, but war threatens to split the land open.
To you, I have yet to hold,
I pray you forgive me; that I was not there when you first touched the earth. Your father is no coward to abandon you in the womb. I am sorry I missed your first cry. That I missed your first breath. That I was not there to give your mother rest and provide you the warmth of my chest. I wanted to be there with you in the ward, but I am stuck behind the curtain of war. I would come to you, but of what use will I be, deceased, if you are my reason to live. When this letter finds you, may it find you free. Walking the fields of freedom and drinking from the rivers of peace. There are no hashtags for you. The world has forgotten to liberate you. But I pray for you, Ta Seti, that you won’t be buried in this cruel scramble for your value.