Alone in a freezing hostel
is the refugee
Out of food vouchers
in a hostile country
Feeling far from home,
further from relief
Embrace him this Ramadhan
and lift his grief

Waves of guilt drown the
struggling single mother
Poverty, debt and depression
are a pain like no other
Traumatised with teens
running wild on the street
Embrace them this Ramadhan
to help her find her feet

With Baba imprisoned,
silence haunts the iftar table
Fatherless and in freefall,
life has never been more unstable
Beset by bullies, bedwetting,
self-esteem beyond repair
Embrace her this Ramadhan,
and relieve her despair

For the vulnerable revert,
it’s a fresh calamity
Thrown out of home,
estranged from family
Isolated and shunned,
her heart dies a slow death
Embrace her this Ramadhan
so she can catch her breath

With health rapidly declining,
the elderly widow does mourn
For the life of dignity that has,
from her hands, been torn
Facing empty days,
unable to manage the most basic needs
Abandonment is her now-
familiar wound that bleeds

It took every ounce of courage
for the battered wife
To dare to imagine the prospect
of a different life
Where her husband’s addictions
and fists didn’t land on her
Though seeing a new future
feels like a terrifying blur

On every doorstep,
street and community we know
Are believers nursing anguish
that would never show
Held by the throat,
choked by life’s intense suffering
Let them breathe with the relief
only Ramadan can bring

This Ramadhan give them
room to breathe