‘Burning tongue’ by Jasleen Gakhal, age 15, Year 10, Wolverhampton Girls High School

A single word, a whispered flame

Can set the world alight with name

It whispers soft then striked with aim

Behold the might of word-born shame,

 

From tongues of fire and bitter core

We learned to speak,to write, explore .

Our words became the bridge and gate –

To mold the clay, define our fate.

 

No shouting voice, no piercing scream –

Just silence striking like a beam.

With just a phrase, they seared the floor –

Words alone can win a war.

 

No fists were raised, no swords were drawn,

Yet had the strength of a smite of brawn.

A speech, a stanza , one cruel line –

And suddenly all the signs align.

 

Their words, a ruthless wildfire blaze,

Obliterating all our faultless days.

Unions and bonds lit ablaze,

Leaving me lost in a blurred haze.

 

A massacre of oaths, of vows, of trust,

Of promises turned into dust.

Thye burned the roots, the leaves, the flower

And basked within that jeering power

 

Overbearing. Intemperate

Each sentence coldly deliberate.

Dominating, flaming, damnable, raw –

Their tongue the slammer, me the flaw.

 

But still I rise, a bird in flight,

Through cloaking ash, toward morning light

As eagle now, no longer prey

I scream, I burn, I fly away.

 

They aimed to dim me, break my beam –

But I became the brighter gleam.

Their wildfire couldn’t claim the sky –

I paint the horizons. I will not die