Just Listen: A poem by Zainab Ahmad

Listen to the sounds of the retreating immigrants

The echoes of feet once fled

If only you had seen all the bloodshed

Listen to our pleas for help

Our voices which are muted

Zainab Ahmad (age 17), St Raphaela’s Secondary School, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.

The ground beneath us is what keeps us rooted

Listen to the cries, don’t feed us lies

We’ve swum seas, climbed borders

Don’t give us orders

Listen to what we have to say

We speak a language which is suave, salty rich

Our throats scream out, we raise the pitch

Listen to what we ask and need

Produce, don’t heed

We wait to receive

Safety, food, water, a simple roof above our heads

Refugees, asylum seekers or victims of war

You say we steal your jobs but they’re jobs nobody wants

We didn’t come here to flaunt

Listen out for us

Hear our subliminal screams

Listen to our mother tongue with words

That carry depth and freedom of speech

Yet English shrinks us down on foreign land

All because we came here unplanned.

Fighting Words 2019: Zainab Ahmad is 17 and a student at St Raphaela’s Secondary School, Stillorgan, Co Dublin