NO KINGS

today, I do not stand.

not for an anthem, not for a flag,

not for men who mistake violence for history.

instead, I write.

the only place

where I was never asked

to choose between silence and survival.

they want celebration.

I give them grief folded

into the shape of something holy.

there are no kings here.

only the lie that some of us belong

more than others.

I remember every version of myself

I was told to abandon,

the girl with two homes and no homeland.

some carry fireworks.

we carry

photographs gone soft at the edges,

recipes written in hands we no longer recognize.

we carry

what empires

tried to unmake.

today,

I do not pledge.

I do not bow.

I light a candle

for all the ones

who kept their language

tucked behind their teeth

and called it resistance.

this, too,

is a kind of country.

the kind we build

without permission.

- pavana reddy