They come from afar, carrying no belongings—only pierced stories, wounds wrapped in plastic bags, black-and-white photographs of mothers waiting at doors that no longer exist. They come from ruins, from fields where the crops were burned before they could bloom, from schools turned into prisons, and prisons turned into temporary homelands. They come with the wind slapping their faces— not a breeze, but the backhand of history. The child crossing the border asks not for his name, nor for the language in which he is allowed to cry. All he wants is a place where a tear can fall without being arrested. Screens ask them: Who are you? And they reply: We are the living who have never lived. We are those who write our names on pieces of cardboard and hang them on our chests, fearing death without identity. We are the children of suffocated rivers, the grandchildren of cities that mourned us— then banished us. We are the ones who know that love needs no visa, but bread does. On rubber boats, the dreamers sat like prophets in storms, whispering prayers yet to be written, believing that one day, the earth will be wider than a passport. I saw a woman holding her infant between her chest and death, singing lullabies to him as he slept— while the waves devoured her feet. I saw a man smile as he drowned, because finally, he could no longer hear the bombs.
O World:
Put your borders in your pocket, erase the names of countries from your maps, and just listen— to the voice of a human being saying: I am hungry. I am afraid. I am alive. For those who walk toward the North are not seeking paradise— they are fleeing from hell.