(Excerpted from ‘Ever Since I Did Not Die’ by Ramy Al-Asheq, translated by Isis Nusair; with permission from Seagull Books)
The Fighter Stripped of Her Braids
The writer called me ‘Rojenda’ because he didn’t know my name. If he had asked, I would have told him that I’m a woman without braids. A young girl who remembers nothing but death. A fighter holding back all my tears, born in Sinjar and older than its massacre. I carry blood revenge on my chest, with his picture on a golden chain. A picture showing all his features and taken before the massacre, the massacre that produced blood revenge like an unwanted fetus. I’m loyal to it now. My name has disappeared. All that remains are my story, my braids and my revenge. His name has disappeared. All that remains are his picture and a stone that says, ‘Here he lives in your soul.’ His name has disappeared so the writer called him Birûsk. If he had asked, I would have told him that he was an awe-inspiring man who stopped for nothing less than life, a smile that went silent and vanished under the dirt far too early. A heart fluttering with love songs who made the buzuq 🗹a prayer to the sun. Two hands playing with my hair and lifting up my braids with the fragrance of cinnamon.
꧋Let us assume that my name is Rojenda. In Kurmanji, it means ‘the sun gives life’, Rojenda, who cut her braids and tied them to a tombstone as an identity. Here is where Birûsk’s body rests, his soul lives within me. Rojenda is now two souls for two lovers. One of them was killed and the other is seeking blood revenge. One murdered and the other a murderer in the making, or maybe she too will be murdered.
ꦍI left my braid on top of a stone under the sun so that the sun can grant life to those darkness had killed. Birûsk means a meteor swallowed by a monster. It turned him into a story and left me to mourn, a fighter with short hair.
***
💟You can call me Birûsk, a meteor coming from the sun in order to save the earth from blood. Another prophet killed because he does not resemble other people. I was planning to take Rojenda to a city that hasn’t changed its name yet. When I decided to infiltrate the night, its darkness swallowed me up. I used to burn so I can see, but in the end, I turned into ashes buried in the dirt, which left me nothing except for the tombstone and her braids that I breathed in. People will say that she turned into a fighter because of me. To them I say, ‘We never chose to fight. We are the merciful children of the first murderer. We wanted to live a life full of love under the sun, but the state hates the sun. By “state”, I mean all our nations that could be called by such a name, or the ones that falsely called themselves so.’
** *
🌸My dear Birûsk, I know that you do not like killing. I know that you open your tender chest to life in order to make a forest out of love. I know that you will rest more if I were to flee and save myself. I will never rest until I get revenge for you. Revenge is the last song of justice, and if I am killed, I will return to you anew.
** *
🐠My love, Rojenda, do not die. Love life as I loved it and open the door to a smile so that the wolves of the night run away, and cry. Don’t run away from your tears. Crying is the most important and distinctive part of being human. Whoever tries to run away from tears or pass them along to others is a liar, pretending that the trees, horses, and birds are crying instead. He runs from his solitude to become some- thing else, so wait until your braids grow again, and live crying as much as you can.
** *
🍸Rojenda carries her rifle and attacks death like a lioness. She shoots quickly as she cries. She shoots and cries and calls out his living name, yearning for him. She was trying to burn the earth for no reason other than fighting dark- ness and its men, to bring the myth of ‘the sun granting life’ to fruition. As she attacks, she is surrounded by a halo of light and fire. Darkness will not swallow the light of the sun or the meteor’s fire this time. Rojenda successfully pleads her case in the face of death. She peels night off her body and dances with life in her steps. Birûsk watches his myth grunting, crying, fighting, and the fragrance of cinnamon from the braids fills his grave. All I know of this Yezidi woman is the image of her braids on a stone in Sinjar. She will one day affirm both his name and hers. Only then will the text return to its fighting imagination.
