75

Yusra Amjad

in what language do you suggest we write Pakistan?
for seventy five years, seventy five tongues have failed to unite Pakistan.

bengal was already bitter when hafeez jallandri penned the qaumi tarana
did he churn out three quintets in farsi just to spite (East) Pakistan?

but you don’t speak persian, you just sang it back at the sky every morning
weren’t we all true little patriots, starched and uniformed in upright Pakistan?

hindi was theirs, punjabi too common, bengali only good for fishermen to gossip in
which of you would deny that only urdu can be the language of erudite Pakistan?

like ninetythree percent of the population, the Quaid could barely speak urdu
but oh you should have heard his Queen’s English when he was trying to ignite Pakistan.

its composition far preceding its lyrics, the anthem was wordless music for years.
an instrumental played at every state event. imagine the sound of a quiet Pakistan. 

Yusra Amjad is a Pushcart-nominated poet and comedian from Lahore, Pakistan. She is also a Fulbright scholar, currently pursuing her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has appeared in Crossed Genres, Cities+Secrets, Where Are You Press, Rising Phoenix Press, The Noble Gas Quarterly and L’Ephemere Review, and The Aleph Review. She was also a finalist for the inaugural Zeenat Haroon Prize.

Andreas/SurrealGradients is a 23 year old self-taught digital artist. His artworks are an escape into surreal worlds and by the use of photo manipulation, his artworks come to life.
Some of his collections are available on OpenSea.