My white orchid has bloomed two fragile, luminous flowers. A quiet reminder that even after the longest winters, life still finds the courage to return. Spring is not only a season… it is a promise. A promise that beauty can rise from silence, that patience can bloom into light, and that even the most delicate souls carry the strength to survive the cold.
I keep in mind that #Afghanistan’s girls can not study and they are being sold to the terrorists.
I opened my eyes.
Everyone pretended to be happy,
while they were embraced
by the darkest cruelty of the world.
I was born in vain, into gore.
I was born a century too soon,
or perhaps a century too late
only to burn slowly
and collapse back
into the language of ash.
When you are born with grief,
you cannot change it.
You cannot change your world.
Like I failed.
I failed when I was born, living, and destroyed
alongside death,
I bled to grow a dream
a dream of freedom,
a dream of life.
I did not know
that darkness spreads everywhere,
from Afghanistan to the world
from Afghanistan’s broken mountains,
to the burning streets of Iran,
to the graves of Ukraine,
to the shattered sky over Gaza and Israel,
to the broken pride of Venezuela
and now it walks freely here and
through every corner of the earth.
I was torn from my roots in pain,
and I remain
opaque,
unconscious,
and drawing into silence. I Know we all tried.
I watched myself in the mirror all day.
Stayed.
Listened.
Listened to the sound of my unknown heart.
Don’t mistake me—
When I speak of lightless loneliness,
I mean a battlefield gone silent.
No brothers beside me.
No fighters.
No freedom fighters.
It was easy once,
Fighting wolves who drank human blood.
It was nothing
To face blood-thirsty demons
When we met by Ghargha Lake,
After photographing the murdered,
The nameless,
The forgotten.
Sardar Ahmad. Shah Marai. Akhtar.
And the youngest—Zahra, and many more.
I never imagined this world without them.
Dreams were once full of color,
Like Kabul’s spring.
Fate—painted in gold and red,
Like autumn around Bridgeport Dam.
Now I am oceans away.
Useless. Forgotten.
Like a red Nowruz fish
Lost in the endless sea.
Was this freedom?
Or just another cage,
Wider than before—
Built from memories that still bleed?
An ocean of gore,
Dark and endless.
A world of distances.
An unfinished journey.
A lifeless lifetime,
Enduring an existence in vain.
No dream. No goal. No fate. No home.
Only a hollow spirit
Living inside a breathing body.
But don’t worry—
I will live,
To see the Tokyo blossoms again,
When spring rises from the ashes.
It rains again—
the wind slips in,
like a restless, curious, long hair woman
peering through the cracks,
watching you drown
in the silence of your own world.
She strikes against you,
breath against breath,
pulling the marrow of your memory.
slipping through the open window,
a ghost fleeing its own skin.
She remembers—
you were once a storm,
a body vast and unbreakable,
a roar that shattered mountains,
a fury that clawed the sky apart.
Now you stagger,
a brittle shadow of that tempest,
dancing only upon the husks of dry corn
in some forgotten ranch,
far from the thunder you once were.
No… I never wished to drown in this absolute, lightless loneliness.
I dreamed of growing old in the land of my own origin, the soil I bled for, where I sacrificed my life again and again.
I learned how to fly. I learned how to dream. I learned how to love. And how to die.
My only mistake was believing there was still something left to love there.
I found out too late, when everything was already falling apart.
I never wanted fame. I never wanted to be a hero. I am not one.
But believe me, little Nili, I have endured storms far heavier than NATO’s steel and fire.
I dreamed of swimming freely in Band-e Amir, the sky mirrored in its waters.
I fought for that dream so hard!
And now, every weekend I die for it again, when I drown in my own longing.
Everything I love is drowning with me, in the same dark loneliness that has swallowed my homeland.
The Salang River, where I washed my feet for the first time, is alone.
Panjshir, where watered my first breaths, is alone.
The three pine trees I planted by my door are alone.
And Zaino, who had no one, now waits to be taken by the same darkness. She has no choice… and I can do nothing.
I am not a hero, for I cry when I imagine Kabul, crushed under the boots of darkness.
I never wanted to end up thousands of miles away from the rivers that once watered my soul.
Blame me if you wish, for living among wolves for years without seeing their fangs.
But know this, I tried. I tried to change my fate, and yours, and tried to have some better choices.
I failed… not because I was a coward, but because I was never a hero.
All I have ever wanted is to fly over the Hindu Kush mountains.
Instead, I am sinking deeper into a night with no dawn.
And I know, this time, there is no hope of survival.
Niligak… I have been trapped for years in a madness I could never change, because I was living among the darkest of wolves.
Qurban,
That night, you were meant to be born at the Médecins Sans Frontières maternity hospital in Dasht-e-Barchi. But the terrorists of the hellbound Haqqani network attacked, and killed you before you could take your first breath. You died in your mother’s womb.
You had no name. Or at least, I don’t know if your parents had chosen one before you were sacrificed.
Here, I call you Qurban, “the sacrificed”: an infant of zero years, from Dasht-e-Barchi, Kabul.
Qurban,
Maybe it’s for the best you never came into this dirty world.
One year after your murder, the same monsters who killed you and your mother brought down the puppet, fascist, and thieving regime of Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai from within.
Using innocent people as human shields, they recaptured Herat, then Kabul.
And if you had an older sister—if she was once a schoolgirl—today she sits quietly in a corner of your home, her knees pulled to her chest, mourning dreams that no longer exist. Just like all my hopes, and dreams now buried beneath the soil.
I don’t know for certain, did they bury you with your mother, still inside her womb?
Or did they pull your tiny, fragile body from her lifeless womb before laying you to rest for ever?
I don’t know what judgment your religion, the one they claimed to kill you for, gives for this kind of martyrdom.
Qurban,
The Taliban and the demonic Haqqani group never considered you Muslim.
That’s why they killed children like you
in schools, in learning centers, at weddings, on Ashura, in sports fields, even inside your homes.
Qurban,
Maybe it’s for the best you never came into this dark world.
At least you were spared the injustice, the hunger, the misery: the bitter reward of their Jihad of the Devils.
Qurban,
Sleep now.
Sleep forever in peace inside your mother’s womb and know you have been so lucky!
Tonight, the sky over Pittsburgh explodes in light—reminding us that freedom, though under threat around the world, still has a voice. Happy 4th of July! 🎆🇺🇸
این همه آرامش و سکوت شوکهآور است. آن همه ارزشها از بین رفتند، آن همه انسانهای خوب! شاید اگر سردار و شاه مری زنده میبودند و به آمریکا میآمدند، ما آن جمعمان را میداشتیم! شاید اگر اختر زنده میبود، اینجا کمکش میکردم که راه پناهندگی خود و خانوادهاش آسانتر شود. شاید اگر آنیا آن عکاس آلمانی زنده میبود، از مشورتاش استفاده میکردم. شاید اگر آن دخترک پرانرژی و پاک زنده میبود، با او قصه میکردم. نمیخواهم باور کنم که تمام آن همه زحمتها و خونها به باد رفته! دیگر هیچ کسی یادی نمی کند!! کابل خیلی دور شده است.
Lilli,
I have never wished for war! never. But if the only thing that brought you to my side again had to pass through that fucking fire, then let the whole world burn in its madness, if only it means I get to hold you all on my arms again!
In that moment …. , nothing else mattered! not the falling sky, not the falling Kabul. I could’ve watched the world collapse in flames, and still, I would have only you on my arms!
Me and the Luna moth.
He said, “They are mystical creatures… it’s a sign of fortune that she flew to you.” Imago.
But I wonder, what will this good fortune be?
Will the wars end?
Will Afghanistan’s children, especially the girls, return to school?
Will the children’s murdering stop in Iran, Israel, Ukraine, Gaza, and everywhere else innocence is crushed?
Luna, whisper to me:
Will I live long enough to witness peace?
During coverage of “#Noking” protest. Thanks @jeffswensen
