Young Writers Society

i

sometimes a cloud doesn't break in the limelight of purpose -
to compose its storm and decompose in its fury
sometimes, it waits for me,
it manifests as a burn as i stare up, and it grabs me with its might
and my breath, shallow and seldom, battles its lightning and its boom with the war cry of my heart-
that is stuck thumping to the symphony meant for war
as each second passes we birth a God that shows His wrath in the details of our bland expressions,
otherwise we are hollow and wavering and nothing
but its prodding of light and fury makes me shake and each zap i shudder in the mist of its twilight
and i couldn't scream but i say i surrender, with the ash inside my bones -
it is relentless stomping after defeated and dead -
i become hollow when the weight of battle stomps again, and stomps again
hollow like a history book because the defeated are sometimes forgotten after genocides
i am more than dead

ii
i live
if that is its own victory in war then it is the kind where poverty and violence stay in its aftermath
the kind of storm that leaves the trees tilted onto power lines and tipped over on roads,
the sticks in a chaotic rhythm marking where the wind rips and tears through the battle, and its victims amazed at its wrath
the kind of bitter sweet that is all bitter- when the people in their homes can only afford spoiled fish
where they eat to survive but nothing they taste or live for anymore is any good.

but they shake it off to make what’s left of their life.
it was a lesson they learned because they couldn't quite handle the weight of death and dying.

iii
in pleasant stories you hear of the rebirth of villages,
the story of the underdogs coming back to life under the spotlight
that is a lie,
you can't bandage these wounds because it is not a cut
it is suffocation - less of the pain that can be healed and scar
and more of the need to have something you will never get again.