We Are Not the Smoke

They tried to burn us down

with their silence,

their missiles,

their headlines soaked in blood.

But we are not the smoke.

We are the ones who breathe.

We are the breath that breaks

through rubble and riot,

through gas-thick nights

and mornings too quiet.

We are not made of ash.

We are not their ruins.

They think we’re gone

because we went quiet.

But we were listening.

We were planting.

We were waiting

for the wind to change.

And now —

a girl ties ribbons

to the fence they said was a grave.

A father teaches his son

how to spell freedom

with lips stitched shut by war.

We are not the smoke.

We are the fire that refuses to kill.

We are the stories

still passed down at dinner tables

where the chairs are mismatched

but the love is not.

They will never understand

how much strength it takes

to dance when your home is dust —

how soft power rises,

quietly,

without asking.

Let them choke

on what they made.

We’ll inhale stars.

We’ll grow wild in the scorch.

Because we were never

what they did to us.

We were always

what came next.