Game Of Thrones

If this is how I get my family back
then let me have it. My land of water
-fall & mountains before the parking
lot full of dead corpses. Put me back

in a time where I could fight.
When fighting was more than poring
over books, trying to teach myself
the ghost of my mother’s tongue

from youtube videos. If we’re talking
about dreams then let me be honest.
I call for my family each night
in this borrowed tongue, in this language

not mine but which I wield daily.
Where is my blood-memory? Why
can’t my stone eggs hatch once touched?
Am I not my own kind of magic?

Let me speak Saraiki without being taught.
Bring me to a time when I could touch steel
& wilt a man’s flesh for coming after my home.
When I could touch the hem of my daadi

ama’s lengha as she looked out of the window
& whispered, the blades are coming.
Allah, bring the blades. Bring the men
swinging them. Bring the acid. Bring

the old gods & the new, the dragons
& the white walkers. Bring me a thousand
winters & a thousand summers. Bring me
what some prophecy or horoscope or wayward

fortune teller promised me. Bring something
more than just the stories of who’ve left us
& the ghosts who tell them.