Karakoram Road

by: Zahra Ali

Take me to the Karakoram Road, I beg—
where mountains meet rivers,
threaded through cliffs like stitches on torn skin.
Each crack a symbol of the worker’s death.

My country’s pride lies in these ranges.
K2 is our beauty—still untouched.
The landscape sings nationalism,
but the anthem fades
as terrain crumbles under drills,
massacred into rubble by our neighbors’ war.

Progress arrives in silence.
The elite watch from seclusion,
while the poor build their vision.
Evolution came at the price of children.

I will go—
I will meet the Karakoram roads
and find the site where my child died.
The cliffs trembled,
and he was gone.
His shalwar kameez caught in the wind—
a final testament to our flag.

He was a boy with calloused palms,
a spine too young to carry a nation’s weight.
He was building our future.
The mountain took him for it.

His wage will never be paid.
No monument bears his name.
Only the road remains.

Every pahar leads to a darya,
raging with what they hold—
the marys of my people, my son,
and the bodies of those who couldn’t swim.

We fear the waters more than hunger.
The bodies are all numbers now.
I pray for my people.
We never learned to swim—
we learned to endure,
to work,
to grieve.

Tourists ride jingle trucks
wrapped in gold and red,
children laughing in the back—
all above the dead.

They won’t see the boy who once prayed
before each climb,
or how the wind carried his laughter
before it carried his breath.

We have no crosses to mark our dead.
We look to the land.
But how long until even land forgets?

The Karakoram Road was never built for us.
It was built over us.
Still, we are the ones who hold it.
Still, we bleed beneath it.
Still, we are the reason it stands—
but only because we fell.
And the dead still lie beneath it.

About the Author

Zahra Ali is a Pakistani-American writer and student whose work explores memory, inheritance, and the human cost of progress. Her poetry has been recognized for its lyrical precision and emotional depth. She serves as an editor for her school’s literary magazine and has participated in regional writing competitions such as the annual write-on competition which shes won 2nd place for 3 consecutive years. Outside of writing, she is passionate about cultural history, language, and social justice. Zahra hopes to continue using poetry as a tool for remembrance and resistance.