Sacrifice Comes Not From The Brave

By Snehasree Senthilkumar

wails of a broken woman weave through the dense columns of smoke, her furious tears streaming onto the pale face pressed against her chest in bandage

the young who once pranced like newborn fawns through the streets, cheeks dappled with radiant glow, now lie veiled in soot and blood, ghoulish skin wan in the watery haze

elsewhere, a desperate son feverishly claws at the tear-stained rubble, howling in hopes to find his mother, but she had no life to kiss his hair, and promise him it’ll be alright

just like that and all at once, a million dreams combust into cosmic oblivion, as smoke rises in billows, forbidding the foreheads of the cursed to be blessed by the warm sunlight

the Men clad in lead and puffing their cigarettes of Power, stand waist deep in bystander’s blood, as they presumptuously declare their hands are not stained

but when fragile egos clash over their Machiavellian vendettas, the only ones who pay the price never even wanted to play the game

but tell me now, how can they be blamed, for what immortal protection can transient cages of flesh and bone offer against man-made meteors on the eternal hours of doomsday

so another Tuesday morning passes as the world watches a passage of history erupt into flames, but how quick do they forget when the screen goes off

for if the dealer decided to deal your hand even slightly differently, it would be your future buried under collapsed walls on a mock stage of hell at the break of dawn

By Snehasree Senthilkumar