🎶🎶Oh, misty eye of the mountain below
Keep careful watch of my brothers’ souls🎶🎶
Four blank papers, unfolded and free
Doodling random markings
Uncertain, blank stare, troubled mind
Where are the words I need?
Are there phrases they forbid?
Thoughts inside this head, hibernating…
Waiting to be awakened.
Changing, erasing, repeating reflecting…
Changing, erasing, repeating reflecting…
Choosing every letter for this poetry
No mistakes should be made
For everyone stares at me
Looking at every inch of my skin
Labelling it with bigotry…
LOOK AT ME, what do you see?
Ever since I was a child,
My mother used to say to me
With this hijab I wear
I will set a new standard of beauty.
When my feet were bare filled with filth and mud
I used to play with some other kids…
No limits, no barriers,
Not even one question about my faith.
Yet, the world kept on turning,
The crust all over kept on cracking and shaking,
Plains below and above great oceans are banging,
Mountains became plains
While seas became deserts.
People have changed, people have become monsters.
The bad news is…
With all these changes, I was once a common citizen
Yet now I was branded the world-renowned suspect.
LOOK AT ME, what do you see?
I am a Muslim, clothed from head to toe
Covering my flesh from the possible wounding words you may throw
I was called a terrorist, tagged to be the wildest activist,
Opposer of the great flow, a brainwasher, I murderer,
I was branded a sinner. Look at me, is that what you see?
Eyes of society gazed with despise,
Naked and bare, they insistently strike,
With this solemn moment of misery,
I seek its demise.
One thing my mother told me,
“Show them what they failed to see.
Show the skies and the great oceans
Even the little creatures creeping and crawling on land.
Let the mountains bend, let the plains show the horizon
Let the people know you’re nothing like a vagabond.
You have dreams and own aspirations.
Let them look at you and make them realize
That you are ONE GREAT CREATION”.
Ako sangka muslim, lawng pa ni Max Ehrman
“Ako yang anak ng akhira,
maynang mga kawoy aw bitun,
awn kanak kapatot adi sa dunya”
It means, I am a Muslim, like what Max Ehrman said,
“I am a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, I have the right to be here”.
I call for unison.
We all have the same vision.
Let’s not keep our eyes forever shut.
For we might miss some opportunities that might not last.
These are opportunities to be united.
These are opportunities to break barriers.
You have seen me. You’ve heard me.
I mean no harm, nor death or crime
But my heart’s jocund and sublime.
Now, LOOK AT ME, who do you see?
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