Things We Do To Ourselves

The earth is tired. Her children still fights over dust and bones, painting the soil red, and calling it glory. A mother buries her son with hands that once braided his hair. She whispers why, but the wind only answers with the echo of bombs. Cities once golden now breathe smoke their windows are eyes, crying glass tears. In a hospital without light, a nurse hums lullabies to strangers as the machines sing their last songs. Her gloves are torn; hope leaks through the holes. Somewhere, a boy with a black skin holds his breath when sirens pass. He has learned that they only counts some lungs as human. We say never again, while loading our guns with tomorrow. We say we are one, yet build fences around our shadows. The stars still shines, not for us, but for the ghosts rising from every battlefield, every fevered bed, every whispered slur. And still,we keep reading, because somewhere in the ashes a child is drawing the sun.