When I’d ask folks for reads,
That best represented them,
All I saw was conflict, violence,
A revolution of the same themes,
~
A relic of the human spirit,
In an ungodly war with itself,
As if that’s what it took,
To finally reveal its true self,
~
As if they felt themselves,
The most, in perpetual conflict,
As if the chaos consumed them,
Allowing them to feel again,
~
And here I am denying,
A condition of the human spirit,
Willing myself to write about war,
Without stepping into it,
~
Not realising that it’s not what,
I’ve to step into as much as,
It is what I’ve to let out,
That slow burning ember,
~
I remember asking a parent,
What the war felt like,
She looked straight through me,
As she shared hauntingly,
~
Every day when she wakes up sweating,
And turns over to count the children,
When the silence of the night is pierced,
By the sound of wailing sirens,
~
“Your wars are just dates, periods in time,
Our wars are tangible, repressed,
Energy, trauma passed down,
From generation to generation,
~
Our wars are the wrinkles,
On our father’s forehead,
The blisters on our mother’s feet,
Our wars make us feel and then don’t,”
~
Ensconing us in numbness,
I’m forced to leave this hanging,
For what else is war than,
An open wound left festering
AFFLATUS 