We Remember So They Can’t Rewrite

They say the ground in Badda still remembers—

a scorch mark near the bend

where a boy’s breath caught mid-chant,

his voice folding into the tear gas

before it reached the sky.

The air was thick with sirens and resistance,

but none of it made the news in full.

I wasn’t there—

not in the rush of footsteps,

not under the scaffoldings of rage and resolve.

But I watched the violence

slip through my screen

like ash under a door.

A girl I barely knew

live streamed from behind the admin building,

her voice steady but her hands not.

“Please share. Just share this.”

As if sharing

could stitch torn flesh

or unfracture bone.

I shared anyway.

What else could I do?

The university became more than walls that day.

It became pulse.

It became battleground.

Posters turned to shields,

classrooms to sanctuaries,

and the gate—

that old iron gate—

suddenly bore the weight of the country’s forgetting.

They came armed

with denial and batons.

We came

with backpacks and protest.

Some ran. Some stood.

Some knelt next to the fallen

and whispered prayers

in between their sobs.

There’s a story of a boy

who dragged three others into safety

before collapsing himself—

a stranger’s hands cradled his head

while someone yelled for saline.

The tear gas canisters were still hot

when students picked them up

and filmed them

proof,

in case the world claimed

none of this happened.

And our faculty?

They didn’t need to march.

They stood beside us

in the silence after.

In messages that said,

“I’m proud of you,”

or

“Your voice matters more than your attendance today.”

Sometimes resistance comes

not as fire,

but as shelter.

From where I sat,

miles away,

I held my breath with each update.

We weren’t just watching

we were archiving.

We were remembering.

Because forgetting

is exactly what they count on.

You don’t have to breathe the smoke

to choke on what it meant.

You don’t need a bruise

to carry the ache.

I did not bleed that day,

but I carry the memory like marrow

quiet, invisible,

but always burning.

They silenced a campus.

But they couldn’t silence the story.

And we

those who stood, those who ran,

those who watched,

those who wrote,

we are the keepers of that flame.

Because what happened in July

was not a day.

It was a wound.

And wounds,

if left untold,

turn to myths.

We remember,

not out of nostalgia,

but out of necessity.

Because power forgets.

But we won’t.