Shervin – Baraye – 27 September 2022

For dancing in the streets
For being afraid of kissing
For my sister, your sister, our sisters
For changing old values
For the shame of poverty
For yearning for an ordinary life
For child labor and their crushed dreams
For this authoritarian economy

For this polluted air
For our city drying trees
For the Asiatic cheetahs’ anticipated extinction
For the innocent forbidden dogs
For the nonstop tears
For repeating this moment
For the smiling faces
For the students
For their futures

For this forced religion
For the imprisoned intellectuals
For the Afghan kids
For all these countless ‘for’s
For the meaningless slogans
For the ruins of these flimsy houses
For the peace of mind
For the sunrise after long nights
For the sleeping pills and our sleepless nights
For man, homeland, prosperity
For the girl who wished she was a boy
For Woman, Life, Freedom
For freedom.

Except where noted otherwise, original writing and translations produced by the Left Renewal Blog Collective are published under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 licence. Republished and translated material remains subject to the licence and terms of its original publication.