What are my words worth?

In this quietly powerful poem, Mayur (pen name) - a 19-year-old psychology student - reflects on the stark contrast between the comfort of everyday life and the distant, devastating realities of war.  When we asked her, if this poem can be put in anti-war genre, this is what she told us, “This poem is my reflection on privileged detachment during times of conflict and war. I grapple with the guilt of safety—living in peace, surrounded by comfort, while war and suffering unfold elsewhere. The key question, “What are my words worth?” We are pleasantly surprised youngsters can be so sensitive and empathise with the people's sufferings in the troubled times. 

What are my words worth? 

Mayur*

I eat regularly.
Not from hunger, but from habit.
The food arrives. The plates are clean. The lights work.
There is no curfew.
No thuds at midnight.
The fan spins above me like a bureaucrat—efficient, indifferent, constant.
It does not know war.

Neither do I.

Outside, people vanish.
Sometimes they return as numbers.
Sometimes not at all.
I read about it. 
That’s all I can do. 

I write because no one has told me not to.
Because I have a desk, a functioning body,
and no personal grief to interrupt me.

They say war builds nations.
But I’ve seen how quietly machinery runs—
How treaties are typed while people are buried.
Ink flows more easily than blood,
especially not your own.

And here I am,
somewhere in the Capital,
with coffee, a working fan,
and time to turn tragedy into stanzas.
Not because I suffer.
But because I don’t.

What are my words worth?
They are not protection.
They are not permission.
They are excess: Unwanted
Proof that I cannot do more.
Helpless—
But terribly human.

******

*Mayur (मयूर pen name) : A 19-year-old psychology major, book nerd, aspiring therapist, poet, author.