Introduction by Shayna Wilson

I am thrilled to introduce Tafheem Ahrar to our Matter readers. In Tafheem’s folio of poetry, he grapples with what it is like to witness others’ lives from a distance, and how to understand experiences beyond one’s own. The first poem focuses on an immigrant mother whose domestic work and sacrifices often go unnoticed. Her choices, such as raising her siblings and giving up her education, model dedication and perseverance for her child, creating a foundation for them to pursue opportunities the mother never had the chance to experience. The second poem explores the discomfort of watching violence in Gaza through a phone while others experience destruction firsthand. Viewing the war from the comfort of home emphasizes the speaker’s inability to act and highlights their privilege in contrast to the lives of others. Lastly, the third poem questions online behavior, showing how constant reposting can weaken the seriousness of real issues by turning them into something temporary or performative, leading the speaker unsure of how to engage meaningfully online. Ultimately, these poems raise questions about seeing others for how they truly are, and what it really means to witness and value other people’s experiences.

DO NOT TURN OUT LIKE ME.

My mother tells me this while tying her scarf,
while her hands float through the pots and pans, rinsing rice.
As she sits down at the end of the day to talk to me
her voice shakes sometimes.
She tells me she should have learned English
and that she never studied
and that she is useless.

Do not turn out like me.
Do not turn out like me.

Ammu, you stay home all day,
our home quiet except for the soft sounds you make
moving from sink, to stove, to laundry basket.

I record our conversations on my phone sometimes. Your laugh floats up between the clatter of lids and spoons. Then your voice grows thin when you talk about the dreams you gave up in Bangladesh.

The schooling you lost to take care of ten.
Your parents who left you behind to move to America.
The siblings you raised and fed because no one else could.
If only I had studied. If only I had learned English, you say.
If only.

At night, when I find you at the kitchen table
your hands finally still

America is different. Here, nobody cares about how much land your family owns. Nobody asks who your cousin is or who your uncle is. They ask what you can do. I cleaned people’s kitchens. It was normal in Bangladesh. I didn’t have much respect or status but that didn’t matter much because I knew what you were capable of. I want you to walk into rooms and feel respected. I want you to have a job where your back doesn’t hurt at night. You will study. You will become what I let go.

Ammu, you think your life is small
because no one clapped
when the clothes were clean because of you
when the meals were ready because of you
because you gave
and gave
and gave.

The truth is, if I ever become the future you wanted for me, it will only be because I spent every step I took toward becoming you.

When the bombs fall in Gaza,
the glow reaches my phone first.
A boy my age runs through smoke,
calling a name the wind carries away.
I sit in a room warmed by a heater
I forget I turned on.

I watch the video twice,
as if repetition might steady something.
The light on my face
feels too clean for what I am seeing.

My day continues the usual way.
School. Homework. Dinner.
His day folds into dust.
I brush my teeth
while a family brushes debris
from a doorway that no longer exists.

I notice how still my walls stay
when I set my phone down.
How easily the quiet returns to me.
How badly it refuses to return to them.

So I keep watching,
not because I know what to do,
but because looking away
feels like another
kind of violence.

At night my room glows blue
from the screen I hold over my chest.
The house is quiet.
My feed is not.

A father carrying his two daughters
appears again,
one in each arm,
their faces turned away from the camera.
He kneels beside their mother
as if placing them gently back into the world.
I lock my phone
but the image stays pressed
against the back of my eyelids.

The next morning there is Sudan,
a red river seen from satellite,
or someone said it was blood.
I still do not know if it was real,
but it did not feel fake
in the way it made me sit up straight.

My feed becomes a row of identical frames,
the same colors, the same captions.
I pause over the repost button,
Sometimes I tap it.
Sometimes I look away.
Sometimes I open a fundraiser
and sit there a moment,
and close it again
before I decide anything.

I talk to my friend about all of this.
How it feels like we have failed people
we have never met.
How silence feels wrong
but speaking feels unsure.
How every crisis becomes a trend
and I am scared
of treating suffering
like a passing moment
in a long, endless feed.

Late at night
I watch my screen dim to black
and I can still hear
the faint tapping of my thumb
searching for the right thing to do
for a world I only touch through glass.

*

Tafheem Ahrar is a Writing to Make Change student at Stuyvesant High School.