war

How was I prepared for this war?

You ask, nursing unpredicted wounds.

I’ve been counting my blessings

like stock on rationed shelves, learning the cracks

in the corners of my bunker,

crying over losses I haven’t yet lost.

The whole world talks of our divide,

and they all think we’ll fight to the death.

They thought cries were sirens, and

that our warning shots were attacks.

I know what you want from me. You invade my body,

with the plains of your palms landing. Hiding.

You claim me as a prisoner to your kleptocracy.

Am I your lover or your hostage?

You are a soldier lost in the trenches,

occupying the veins of a foreign land.

I too crossed enemy lines. I don’t hate it.

I don’t hate you: this is not the same war

that we live through, as we begin to

learn the world around, to learn each other.

But I don’t want you here. The holy land

you unknowingly explore is home to my history,

yet you yearn to destroy it.

Why am I tempted to let you in?

Why do I submit to your will, your rule?

I know you are a curse to my name — a toxin,

but I welcome the bomb.

I’ll hurl ammunition at my own troops;

kill them so they stop talking

about us. And in the silence of the room,

following forty-five rounds of treaty-talks,

while weapons still whisper below,

we’ll emerge. But we’ll never know peace:

I was sickened — you were sick.

We retreated to shelters, heads hung

like criminals. Convicted.

An old friend is now my carrier pigeon,

and I await your empty word every day.