Nehl Mahmood Ghani
in PH 2017 (School Poets) Poets of Cambridge International School

Tolerance Is My Desire

Tolerance Is My Desire

The beating of a heart,

Struck the silence with a splitting pierce,

A golden gleam shimmered from within,

Spreading like wildfire,

Bleeding through the crevices of the greedy,

With caged barricades that locked away the truth,

The roaring polyphony of a single,

Crumpling even the strongest of towers,

A spirit radiating Love and compassion,

Spilling a tear,

Dropped more times than the number of fallen angels,

It is tolerance that they desired.

A distant light swallowing the shadows,

Burning the perceptive devil within,

Waking them from the stupor they fell under,

A spell,

A curse?

Opening their eyes to find destruction,

Ignorance,

The materialistic joys of once happy lives,

Vanishing in thin air,

Seemingly like a mirage seen by the desperate,

For tolerance is what they shunned.

The ability to see left many blind,

Leaving a distant memory in the wake,

Nothing more than a fantasy,

A quiet domain,

Once the kingdom of power,

Silenced by the losses,

No Laughter resonated from the echoing realm,

An amalgam of confusion and fear threatened to take over,

As the monster behind everyone’s nightmare broke out of hibernation,

A growing beast,

The creation of humans,

Unconsciously feeding off the lies and hate,

For a beast knows not of right and wrong,

But the deeds tainted on the faces,

Of those who wronged,

Marked their fate,

For they did not desire tolerance.

The distant memory of love and equality seemed farfetched,

For where they woke from life,

An eternal war had just begun,

For they unveiled themselves of the curtains,

That rendered them guilty,

Guilty for more,

More and more,

Wherein nothing seemed enough,

A despicable notion to keep,

Blackened with treasures that had no worth,

A mere smile costing more than one could afford,

A life even more precious than the rarest gem,

For they waited too long,

Too long to live,

Too long to look,

Too long to feel,

Too long to liberate,

From the false memory that they lived in,

They did not desire tolerance.

While many risked their lives to live,

Not exist,

To watch their whole life repeat itself before the sun set,

The colors they loved to paint in,

Molded into the most divine statues,

Uniquely built to excel in their strengths,

Different from one another,

Yet more alike than specks of dust,

A machine way more advanced,

Unimaginable,

The human; Black, Brown and White,

Dependent on one another,

For independence does not mark the strength of an Individual,

But the strength of individuality,

To stand out,

Be unique,

Accept change,

Thrive,

And Liberate,

To finally desire tolerance.

And to sing a tune in harmony,

We must live together,

In a society not marked by our individual differences,

But the common ground we stand upon,

And while we embrace advancements in technology,

We must upgrade our minds,

For all we must do to prevail,

IS TO DESIRE TOLERANCE!

About The Poet

Nehl is a Student from Cambridge International School, Dubai. She has lived in Dubai for the last 11 years and feels fortunate growing up in a safeguarded environment protected by the discrimination that plaques many countries around the globe.

As a child, she developed a growing passion of wanting to impact the lives of others; to help raise ears towards the cause of peace and harmony.

She feels that The Poetic Heart platform provided her with an outlook to put forth different abstract perspectives that she used to create in an embodiment of her thoughts hoping to impact the way people see and understand the divine entities that we are.