if you want us to throw stones back,

we could pick the entire planet apart.

if you want, we could raise our sticks over the walls of our fortresses
till they are piled so high with bricks that they crush the sky over our heads.
we could quench our thirst with each other’s blood
till all our rivers and veins run dry,
but listen, I can tell you this: in the face of our smiles,
in the sound of the laughs that we share, singing hand in hand,
there is something you cannot kill:
the only weapon we’ll wield,
this unbreakable joy
is the resistance in our peace

[For Ramjas]

Photograph: Prabhakar Duwarah