No Longer Can I Cry

By Nicholas Dante Failla

No longer can I cry 

For every tear would be an injustice, Every weep a violation 

To the headless baby, 

The incinerated school, 

The blood soaked flour, 

The mother in flames, 

The paralysed father, 

The grandfather’s watch, 

The grandmother’s broken heart, The 335 bullets, 

The IV drip feeding a severed limb, The sand in place of bread, 

Children whose faces 

No more belongs to them. 

The broken camera, 

A cypress in cinders 

The olive trees uproot 

The stunned crowd 

Whose fate would slash, 

From bombs between silence Their fate absolute.

My tears are an insult 

To the disease that spreads, The liquified living, 

The poisoned water, 

The cremated city, 

The hunger march, 

The barren field, 

The torture and lies, 

The evil revealed. 

My tears cannot touch 

The ocean of apathy, 

The burdensome rage 

Of encumbered minds. 

I bear witness. 

So I cry no longer, 

Over what has the devil himself Riddled with envy. 

And no one will try, 

No one will cease. 

The horrors of the living,

To the crimes I ache in protest. My voice is a fracture, 

my soul gone astray, 

I can cry no longer, 

for this humanity betrayed.

By Nicholas Dante Failla