I am alien
But I speak the language.
I can take you back
To sweltering temperatures and ravishing monsoons.
Back to my mother, grazing buffalos
And the emerald, lily-padded, rain-matted fields.
Close your eyes and imagine the mud huts
Created by ancestors whose hands still tell the story.
But now I stand,
In a lobby,
Of this – gold hotel.
And open the door for a stream of colourless faces.
Aqsa Shaheen Ahmed is a third year English student at King’s College, London
I RISE 