Do not run
Do not run Armenian, you’ll only die tired.
For the mountains of our homes are just cruel imagery of our tombstones.
Do not run Armenian, you’ll only die tired.
Those cursed to leave watch from afar
and suffer at the loss of their mother tongue
forced to wear their identity as scars.
Do not run Armenian!
The road of life has been drained,
your people are dying,
you are dying.
The call has been made.
What will you do, Armenian?
Sitting at home, sitting afar
as your people die, and all hope is starved?
Can you whisper their names?
Can you mourn a land you never knew,
a people you can never fully be?
Can you fight off the desperation and woe?
Wasting days memorializing the time you should’ve planned,
should’ve fought for your home,
clawed at your land.
Now you won’t dare say it is no longer there,
but can sense it’s fading, fast and clear.
Listen to me, Armenian.
They spoke of us as dogs
panting for air, breath stolen from our lungs,
ears ringing from the shots of our blood.
There is no help for us, Armenian…
Foreign policy be damned.
They won’t hear your pleas or your prayers.
Run, Armenian!
Take everything you can.
Plant your feet into the soil of your mother’s land.
Better die restless than in contempt,
in a war well fought than a life unspent.
Enver Pasha, one of the Ottoman officials who organized the 1915 Armenian Genocide, wore a badge with the words, “Do not run Armenian, you’ll only die tired.”
Vika Dzhobadze
Latest posts by Vika Dzhobadze (see all)
- Do not run - March 14, 2025
