global Wanderlust Adventures

Inspired by “On Your Knees” by Mosab Abu Toha

The desert wind whispers secrets through my backpack, secrets of children’s laughter muffled by winter clothes. One small hand clutches mine, a three-year-old trust born in a world beyond borders. Passports flutter defiance in the other hand, testaments to a life fractured by lines on a map.

My wife and our precious cargo meander ahead, a thirst for normalcy battling the dust. A soldier’s voice shatters, not with a question, but a description, stripping humanity bare. Nameless, stateless, adrift in a storm of confusion.

Guns bristle, a metallic ballet against the canvas of a relentless sun. The echo of distant shelling paints a grim portrait of a world gone mad. A guttural command rips through the air: “Drop everything!”

But I am not a thing to be discarded. Dignity, a shield against the storm, rises in my chest.

The soldier’s voice, laced with a twisted familiarity, speaks my full name, even whispers the name of my grandfather. A flicker of warmth ignites within, quickly extinguished by the icy grip of hate for the man, the uniform, the system.

Demands for ID, a brutal stripping away of privacy. My ears become sanctuaries, harboring the echoes of my mother’s stories, my father’s comforting chants, the gentle tick of a clock marking the start of another school day – a normalcy stolen.

“How many passports?” the question hangs heavy, a weapon of bureaucracy. Each document, a desperate plea for passage. We are a family, bound by love, not lines drawn on paper. The destination: a crossing, a gateway to a fragile hope.

Silence descends, a suffocating cloak punctuated by a barked profanity. “Teacher?” the soldier mocks, a cruel twist of the identity I hold dear. But a teacher cannot impart wisdom from his knees.

Blindfolded, handcuffed, the world shrinks to a brutal shove. Each barked command, “On your knees!” a hammer blow to the spirit. The accusation hangs heavy: “Terrorist!” A word devoid of truth, fueled by fear.

Pain explodes in a symphony of kicks, a metallic tang of blood fills my nostrils. The world blurs, a kaleidoscope of sand and sky. Yet, a defiant spark remains, a flicker of humanity refusing to be extinguished.

The journey stretches into an eternity. The desert, a vast canvas painted with the silent suffering of others. A shared sob pierces the silence, a desperate plea for a wife, a child, a life on hold.

“We are on our knees!” the anguished cry echoes. But even on their knees, the human spirit endures.

A truck, a brutal lurch, then silence. The desert reclaims its dominion. We are deposited, human flotsam cast upon a foreign shore. The sting of another kick, a final indignity.

But then, a whisper, a shift in tone. “A mistake,” the soldier murmurs in a foreign tongue. “We are taking you home.”

Home. A bittersweet word, a promise laced with the scars of a journey etched into the soul.

Link to original poem: https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/