When drawings being scribbled,
colours dripping red,
words being silenced,
thoughts being limited,
lives turn to nothing,
can you touch pain with politics?
Can you perceive pain with your beliefs?
Lives smeared with blood,
your loved ones lying on the ground
lifeless…

Can you hold on to reason,
and when fear like dark clouds
leaks within everyone,
and when fear feeds more fears
and when fear swells hatred
with its giant steps,
can you cure desperation with laws?
When walls are being built again
for the sake of freedom and security,
with violence and blood,
can you create peace with concepts,
when a person without blinking an eye
can kill another person,
when another can glorify death
for the sake of religion?
The moment you declare
you believe,
if the world stops turning,
if reasoning,
sensibility,
sensitivity,
goes blind against beliefs
and even a pen could be perceived as a weapon,
how can thoughts be free?
What would expressing yourself mean?

This poem was posted on 14 January 2015 at indexoncensorship.org