Priya writes

The sky bleeds dust at Gaza’s dawn.

Sirens sing the morning in.

In Sudan, the rivers forget how to flow—

and a mother presses silence

into the hands of her starving child.

I scroll. I stop.

I scroll again. Endlessly.

The images brand themselves

into the softest parts of me.

How do I keep living,

when every corner of this earth

seems to be bleeding?

I am oceans away,

but my soul is screaming in the streets

of places I’ve never been—

names I’ve learned through grief.

In Manipur, the silence screams between burnt homes and broken mothers.

In Kashmir, the snow forgets how to fall gently—each flake a memory of what was lost.

And still I eat.

Still I sleep.

Still I smile in meetings.

And I carry that—

the absurdity of normal

in the face of collapse.

I don’t have answers.

Only ache.

Only questions that echo like gunshots

in a sky that has run out of room

for stars.

But I see them.

I hear them.

And that seeing—

that refusal to look away—

that is my protest.

That is my offering.

That is how I bear witness.

I write their names in my breath.

I carry their stories

into rooms that would rather forget.

And yes—

My grief is a widening sea.

It drowns me some days.

But even grief

learns to breathe.

Somewhere—

beneath the rubble,

beneath the silence,

beneath the apathy—

a seed is stirring.

A stubborn hope.

Small. Ragged.

But real.

I do not know if peace will come.

I do not know

if justice will ever arrive on time.

But I remain.

I remain.

Tethered to the ache.

Tethered to the truth.

A thread in the great, unraveling weave

of witness,

of presence,

of impossible love

for a world that keeps breaking.

And I whisper—

to the ones I cannot reach,

to the ghosts the world won’t name—

I see you.

You are not alone.

I am still here.