Aafia Siddiqui.

i am ashamed.
why didn’t they just murder you,
like they did your young child?
why didn’t they sell your 2 oldest
to Afghan Warlords, as they do?
your existence

is a stain on us.
i cry dry tears for your suffering
so long in the despair of Nations.
your broken body, deformed spirit
wake me from my winged dreams:
sleep is shame.

we are shame.
why can’t they admit they’re fools?
your name on the lips of death,
brings the monsters out of dens
that you and Daniel have survived.
your persecution

is still our crime.
is your fate a lesson to conscience?
did your research into learning by
imitation explain how I might exist
with my countrymen’s disgrace?
i can’t imitate.

i am proud.
you debase their false patriotism,
their grandiose lies, manufactured
in cheap, contrite imaginations.
their tortures do not blight you.
they are sin

embodied.
your face, once so full, your mind,
once so acute: what have we lost?
i would aspire to your strength,
that you might be avenged.
I am ashamed.