What will you do?

My country has changed its face.

It now behaves like a thief,

removing leaders from other lands

*

just to steal their oil, gold,

and everything valuable they own.

This feels like the past repeating itself—

*

new conquerors in modern clothes,

taking what does not belong to them,

calling it power, calling it progress.

*

So I picked up my guitars.

I changed the strings carefully,

because I know I must write songs

*

to record this dark chapter of history.

We learned long ago that music can fight hate.

These are dangerous times again,

*

and we will need every voice,

every song, every instrument.

I saw a citizen of my country shot dead.

*

She was sitting quietly in her car,

her hands clearly visible,

doing nothing wrong.

*

Her only crime was trying to protect others

from unfair arrests,

from being taken away,

*

from being treated like they don’t belong.

She was white, a mother,

a wife, a poet—

*

a normal human being

standing up for humanity.

That is when I returned to my desk.

*

I cleaned it slowly,

changed the light bulb,

and made space to write.

*

I sharpened my pencils,

filled my pens with ink,

opened my notebooks wide.

*

Because we will need every poem we can write.

I refuse to look away.

I refuse to stay silent.

*

I refuse to agree just to feel safe.

I am one person writing one poem,

showing the truth of a dream

*

that is slowly dying—

and still trying to save it.

I stand here alone,

*

yet I know I am not alone.

We are more than those

who hide behind masks and uniforms,

*

pretending fear is law

and cruelty is justice.

There are more people who care

*

than people who hate.

More who hope

than those who are afraid.

*

There are more of us than them.

There are more of us than them.

There are more of us than them.

*

So now I ask you—

When curfews control your nights,

when roads are blocked,

*

when armed men patrol your streets,

When lights shine into your home at midnight,

when they demand your phone,

*

your papers, your freedom—

When they say, “Just wait,

we are checking something,”