Tomorrow's Voices

Listen to the voice of a child survivor of the rigours of war.

🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

I woke up today and the sky was much quieter than it usually is—

there wasn’t the hum of planes from the nearby airport,

just a breeze, soft as a treading ghost,

slipping through the hairline cracks of yesterday’s walls.

Do you remember those walls? You put them up all over the place.

Concrete and metal legs stretching towards the sun,

but now the sun pushes back, now angry.

So we hide in the shadows of these legs,

wishing for the peace that never comes.

🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

Grandad said the youngsters in his time didn’t listen,

that they fought over the most trivial things—

sparred over

different skin,

different prayers,

different clothes.

There’s always time to save things—

but all time does is take.

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Grandad cries as we heal,

body and mind,whole and complete,

from the searing flesh of our bones.

The rawness of our scars.

Begs the dirt to forgive what he, and they, buried so hastily.

🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

War has become a grim feature of our landscape.

We discovered that bullets buried young children,

before adults, still fighting, would later apologize.

Now we hang on to every life,

each a rare treasure,because they thought that people would always be—

Wouldn’t they?

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But I wonder—How did a slide, not bombed, once look?

Was it colorful—red, blue, yellow—colors that once filled the sky

with their brilliance?

Were parks once filled with trees,

or were they empty

like they are now—

land burnt,

trees scarred,

swings charred?

🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

The ghosts of children run by sometimes,

feet torn by shards of war,

little voices, a melancholic chorus in my ears.

They say you buried them,but I think they never really left—

not their forms, not their spirits,

not the way you forgot to love them when they were once here.

🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

I breathe the dense air now,its heaviness a deadweight.

Maybe it’s better this way—

a world now whispering,

a world just waiting,

a world only hoping.

🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

But in time, we will remember their tussles’ heavy cost—

people-filled streets, wrestling with time,

laughter-filled rooms, chorusing with joy,

love-filled homes, hands joined together.