Thiago Messi..When Football Gives My Wings Back Poem by P A Noushad ...

At midnight,
when the world has fallen silent,
a thought comes to me
without knocking at my door,
a little boy named Thiago Messi,
quiet as the moon,
calm as a river beneath the stars,
moving with his right foot
as though the ball itself
were whispering secrets to him...
A beautiful dribble…
a sudden turn…
the vision of an attacking midfielder…
and somehow,
for a moment,
my tired heart begins to dance.
I do not know
what tomorrow has written for him.
Perhaps the future will take him
to places no one can yet imagine...
But somewhere inside me
lives a beautiful dream...
Messi and his son,
together beneath the colours of their nation,
walking onto the greatest football stage,
and lifting the 2030 World Cup
towards the sky...
Is it only a dream?
Perhaps.
But sometimes
a dream is not an escape from life,
it is the reason
we continue living it.
When I look at football,
I see something my tired eyes
have searched for throughout life:
hope without hatred,
greatness without arrogance,
success without humiliation,
hard work without excuses,
humanity without boundaries,
and humility without weakness.
Outside the football ground,
I have sometimes felt exhausted.
I have watched superstition
cover reason like darkness...
I have watched blind faith
silence questions...
I have watched communal walls
rise between human hearts...
And sometimes
even among the educated,
I have wondered..
Why are we still building walls
when the earth was given to us
without borders?
My heart becomes breathless
when I see such darkness.
So I turn towards football.
And there,
on the green grass
I breathe again...
There, Messi teaches me
that greatness can remain humble.
There, his sons remind me
that tomorrow can still be innocent...
There, a ball crosses a boundary
and no one asks
which religion it belongs to...
A pass travels
from one human being to another.
A goal belongs
to everyone who celebrates it...
And for ninety minutes,
the world remembers
how beautiful it is
to stand together.
Perhaps that is why
Messi and his sons
have become more than football
inside my heart...
They have become
little lamps
in a long night.
Because I have known loss.
My grandfather…
My father…
My brother…
Three lives
that should have continued
for many more years.
Three wings
that became tired
before reaching the sky.
And I have carried
the silence of those losses
inside me for a long time.
Yet..
I am still here.
Still walking.
Still dreaming.
Still writing.
Still believing.
Now I stand in England,
far from the village roads
where my childhood began.
And everywhere I look
I see football grounds,
green fields
waiting beneath the changing sky,
children running after dreams,
boots striking the grass,
and somewhere within that sound
my own heart whispers:
"Do not stop."
Perhaps these football fields
are not only fields.
Perhaps they are
places where wounded souls
learn to breathe again.
Perhaps the game
is telling me:
You still have another match to play.
You still have another goal to score.
You still have another sunrise to see.
Your story is not finished.
So, dear Thiago,
if one day
you walk beside your father
into a World Cup stadium,
and the whole world watches you,
remember this:
somewhere,
far away from the great stadium lights,
there may be an old dreamer
whose heart is watching too.
A dreamer
who found consolation
in your quiet smile,
who found hope
in your little feet,
who found poetry
in your dribbling,
and who believed
that the future
could still be kind.
And if one day
you and your father
lift that golden trophy
towards the heavens..
I may not know
where I will be.
But perhaps
my soul will smile.
Because I will know
that the little hope
I carried through difficult days
was not completely foolish.
For I have learned something
from football..
Wings do not always grow
because the world is gentle.
Sometimes
they grow because
we refuse to let
the world's cruelty
take away our dreams.
So tonight,
I ask for no miracle.
Only this:
Give me strength
to keep my wings open.
Let Messi's humility
teach me simplicity.
Let his perseverance
teach me endurance.
Let his sons' innocence
remind me that humanity
has not disappeared.
Let football
continue to be a language
that does not need translation.
And when pessimism
comes quietly to my window,
let me answer:
"Not tonight."
I still have dreams.
I still have poems.
I still have football.
I still have a heart
that can be moved
by a child controlling a ball
under the evening sky.
And perhaps,
just perhaps,
that is enough
to keep a human being
alive with hope.
For as long as there is
one child running across
a green football field,
as long as there is
one father teaching his son
to love the game,
as long as there is
one heart that chooses
humanity over hatred,
the world is not finished.
And neither am I.
Tonight,
I spread my wings again.
Not because
the sky is free of storms,
but because
I have finally remembered
that I was born
to fly...