This Bitter Dust

By Kaavin Farwaha

This bitter dust clings to my skin

A second flesh I’m living in.

It whispers tales the dead once told,

Then disappears like breath in cold.

The fields are bare where gardens grew,

The wells run red where once ran blue.

The rose is mute beneath the stone

It bloomed, unseen and died alone.

They marched beneath a borrowed sun,

With flags that bled when day was done.

Each stripe, a lie - each star, a grave

And silence wrapped around the brave.

They said, “It’s freedom,” then they flew

Through shattered walls the night broke through.

But freedom’s just a word they bend,

A thread they pull that doesn’t mend.

I asked the wind what truth remained.

It coughed through ruins, weather-stained.

A church without a single bell.

A heaven scorched to look like hell.

What good is love no one will claim?

Or prayers that burn in war’s own flame?

What good are tears the sky won't see?

The soil drinks them silently.

I once believed that dawn would rise

That something lived behind the skies.

But now I know the light was fake.

A flare they launched for power’s sake.

The clocks have stopped. The pages fade.

The names we knew, the debts we paid

Are buried deep where memory rusts,

Beneath this weight of bitter dust.

So if I speak, it’s not to heal

But name the ghost no time can seal.

The rose is gone. The sky is dry.

No one returned. I wonder why?

By Kaavin Farwaha