Selective empathy
by Kaynat Ansari, India. First place in the Writory International Poetry Contest, October 2025, scored 95 out of 100.
Selective Empathy In blood-soaked gardens, history repeats its verse, Stories separated by time, yet bound by the same curse. Jallianwala's walls remember bullets without warning, While Gaza's children know too well the terror of each morning. Once we wept for Punjab's martyrs, unarmed and cornered prey, Our textbooks painted Dyer as the villain of that day. We celebrate in theaters those who fought against such might, Yet scroll past distant headlines of bombs falling each night. A child's cry sounds identical in every tongue and land, A mother's grief needs no translation to understand. Why do we sort the fallen by the gods they choose to name? Blood runs red through every vein, pain burns with equal flame. War claims it fights for honor, for borders drawn in pride, While generals feast in comfort as common soldiers die. We label some as terrorists, others freedom's flame, But strip away these titles тАФ the suffering's the same. How curious our memory, selective in its reach, We thunder with conviction when it's comfortable to preach. The massacre that taught us once what tyranny could be, Becomes abstract when happening across a distant sea. We wear our outrage like designer clothes, to don or discard at will, Passionate for yesterday's pain, for today's, strangely still. Our tears flow free for history's page, safely bound and sealed, But dry up fast when facing what the present has revealed. Two gardens watered with the blood of those who couldn't flee, One story shapes our identity, one tests our empathy. The distance between them is not of miles but of mind, How easily we remember, how willfully we turn blind. ~ Kaynat Ansari
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