Thirteen

by Hagir Elsheikh

I was thirteen

when my voice first broke free,

raw and steady like the beat of a drum.

Not yet smooth,

not yet certain but loud enough to matter.

The streets of Bahari City were my first stage,

lined with Brick walls and watchful eyes.

I learned to march before I learned algebra,

chanting for peace, freedom, and dignity,

each step planting a seed in the soil of resistance.

I found my voice in protest, but before that,

I found my fire in a classroom,

beneath the harsh gaze of a teacher with sharp hands.

I cut my hair short, bold, clean,

rebellious in a way I didn’t yet understand.

“Girls don’t cut their hair,” she said,

the sting of her ruler landing on my knuckles.

“You look like a boy.”

Her words struck harder than the stick,

but I refused to cry.

I wore pants instead of skirts, ran faster than the boys,

and climbed trees that swayed in the wind like old friends.

I was wild and untamed, and I knew,

deep in my bones, that no rule of theirs could break me.

The classroom was a battlefield too.

They tried to silence me,

to shape me into something small and neat,

but I had already seen too much,

already tasted the freedom of open fields

and the river that flowed without asking permission.

I sat at my desk,

pen in hand,

writing poetry beneath the math problems.

Lines about freedom, about home,

about the sandstorms that swept through Tandalti,

the scent of ripe dates in the market,

and the hum of my father’s voice at dusk.

At recess, we played volleyball in the sun,

the ball soaring high like our dreams,

the laughter of my friends rising with it.

In those moments, the world felt wide and open,

like anything was possible.

And then there were the marches my true education.

My feet blistered from walking miles,

but I never stopped.

I led chants with a voice stronger than my age,

calling out for justice,

calling for the world to see us, to hear us.

I was arrested for speaking too loudly.

Detained for asking questions that made the air in the room too heavy.

In dark rooms with no windows,

they tried to make me small.

But they didn’t know that I carried the Nile inside me,

that the spirit of Kandaka queens danced in my blood.

They didn’t know that I had already been shaped by the wind and the sand,

by stories whispered late at night, by women who refused to bow.

When they let me go, I returned to the streets wings stronger than before.

My friends were waiting,

eyes wide, arms open, ready to pull me back into life.

We didn’t speak of what happened.

We didn’t have to. We just kept marching,

kept dreaming, kept living in a world that tried to steal our light but couldn’t.

I found love in the middle of rebellion,

his smile full of warmth in the chaos.

We exchanged glances across crowded protests,

our hearts beating in rhythm with the chants.

We dreamed of a free Sudan where we could build a life on our terms.

We lived fiercely dancing at concerts

beneath stars that seemed to pulse with hope,

laughing in the face of fear,

writing poems that spoke of rivers and freedom

and the kind of future we knew we deserved.

I was thirteen when my voice found its wings.

I was a fighter, a poet, a dreamer.

A girl with short hair and stubborn eyes,

balancing revolution and resilience,

walking the tightrope between child and warrior.

I carried every lesson with me the sting of a ruler,

the songs of my people, the taste of dates in the sun,

and the stories of women who refused to be silenced.

I am from every inch of Sudan

from Tandalti’s sandy streets

to Bahari City’s Zugag and corners,

from the White Nile’s steady flow to our voices rising together.

I carry my country with me,

I was thirteen when my voice began to rise,

and it has never stopped singing.

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