CW: sexual abuse, genocide
The Plea
My Lord, my name is X,
and I stand here today
to speak for a woman
who has forgotten how to smile.
She is my client.
She is rich.
Richer than any land you know.
She sits on mountains of gold,
bathes in rivers of diamonds,
wears forests like a crown.
Her belly holds the world’s treasures —
copper, cobalt, coltan,
the very blood of your phones,
the heartbeat of your cars.
But my Lord,
her children are dying.
They are dying with full plates
just out of reach.
They are starving in a garden.
They are thirsty beside a river.
Their ribs are like piano keys
playing a song nobody wants to hear.
Their eyes are like empty windows
in a house that once held laughter.
My Lord,
my client is not well.
She is not well at all.
She has been broken
in places you cannot see.
Men have entered her
like soldiers entering a village;
not to love,
but to conquer.
Not to hold,
but to hurt.
She has been raped.
Not once.
Not twice.
But every day.
Every single day.
Her daughters too.
Her sons have watched.
Their childhood was stolen
before they could spell the word.
She shakes.
She screams in her sleep.
She holds her children close
but cannot protect them.
She builds walls of prayer
but they crumble like paper.
My Lord,
she lives in a house
without doors.
Without windows.
Without locks.
Danger walks in freely.
Justice never visits.
Protection is a stranger
who never calls.
Only survival sits at her table —
eating scraps,
drinking tears.
She has been looking for you, my Lord.
She has been searching everywhere.
In the churches,
in the mosques,
in the temples,
in the courts,
in the streets,
in the faces of strangers.
She has been calling your name
into the wind,
into the night,
into the silence.
But you are not there.
No more to be found.
No more.
She has known every kind of violence.
Every kind.
War that wears a uniform.
War that wears a smile.
War that comes at midnight.
War that comes at noon.
War that hides in the market.
War that sleeps in the next room.
She has been burned.
She has been cut.
She has been buried
and dug up again
just to be buried once more.
And still
she breathes.
Still
she hopes.
Still
she waits.
My Lord,
I have shown you her wounds.
I have shown you her children.
I have shown you her tears.
Now I must tell you something.
Something I have known
from the very start.
I am not just her lawyer.
I am not just her voice.
I am not just a name on a paper.
I am the one she has been looking for.
I am the one she could not find.
My Lord,
my name is X.
But for my client,
for Congo,
for her children,
for every mother who weeps,
for every child who dreams of bread,
for every soul that whispers “enough”
My name is Peace.
And I am here
to set her free.
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