NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU

by Umang Dhingra

do not be too loud on the streets; do not play music; 

this is how you hide if there is a bombing, this is how you hide if there is noise, this is how you hide if there is a knock on the door, this is how you hide if the shadows outside your room change shape; 

this is how you cover yourself up 

but i thought we did not have to do that anymore– 

this is how you cover yourself up; 

this is how you read books you stole from school, this is how you read books from your father’s shelves, this is how you read books when you are not supposed to; 

this is how you cry for help; 

do not wear bright colours; 

do not look anyone in the eyes; 

do not go outside until I tell you to; 

this is how you beg for asylum you thought was guaranteed; 

this is how you live with no electricity; this is how you live with no food; 

this is how you live with no dignity; 

this is how you live with constant fear 24/7 on 365;

this is how you pray and beg and hope that someone is coming to save you,

knowing

no one is coming to save you.

Umang Dhingra is a 17-year old writer from India. Her work can be found in numerous publications, scraps of paper around the house, and her family's WhatsApp group. She usually writes about being a brown girl from India, about her family, and what her mother calls, 'little explosions of sadness.’

THE PHOTOS DON'T DO JUSTICE

by Tricia Knoll

QAMISHLI, Syria – "Eight-year-old Sara Yousif has become a symbol of the Turkish war on northeast Syria, which has caused the death of around 40 civilians, according to a war monitor." —The Independent (UK), October 13, 2019. "Sara lost her leg when Turkish shells rained down on her neighborhood of Qudurbag, eastern Qamishli on Thursday, killing her brother 11-year-old Mohammed and wounding her mother and brother Ahmad." —Rudaw (Kurdish media network), October 13, 2019.  Below, Sara's father Yousif Gharib speaks to reporters at the funeral for his son. Credit Rudaw for photos.

to the glory light on sober gold
of Vermont’s falling leaves

or for the places we’ve seen
Ansel Adam’s Yosemite

now smothered in wildfire smoke.
Those people we remember –

the Afghani girl’s blue eyes
the minister on the hotel balcony

the monk in flames or the man
with a flower facing a rolling tank

the father’s arm holding daughter
Valeria on the banks of the Rio Grande

and now Sara, age eight,  a Kurd, who lost
her leg to a fast-moving Turkish bomb

and her father sobbing over the body
of his dead son, not yet pointing his finger

to the betrayal of a man in Washington
whose soldiers she may have once trusted.

The photos do not do justice, let them
remind us justice could be done.

Tricia Knoll’s most recent poetry collection How I Learned To Be White (Antrim House) received the Gold Prize in the Poetry Book Category for Motivational Poetry in the Human Relations Indie Book Prize for 2018.