I come from a land
Where sorrow perches upon the shoulders of men,
Yet never bows them;
For they were forged to replace the fallen walls of homes.

From a land
Where women knead the wheat of their patience into a loaf,
To mend the face of a sun, pierced by absence.

From a land
Where children gather handfuls of pebbles
To stone a sky that,
whenever it is hungry, feeds on the crumbs of hearts.

In my land,
Sorrow creeps like ivy across faces,
joy is violated in the age of childhood.

In my land,
Dreams are violently aborted,
a poet is shot at the beginning of the poem.

“Our land...
is a vast football field, littered with landmines,”
Says a child.

“Our land…
is a flourishing mass grave,”
Says a mother.

“Our land...
is a tyrant toppling a tyrant,”
Says a wise elder.

What came to pass was not merely death;
it was a new map for that land.

The land that killed us twice:
Once, when it bolted its doors behind us,
as we fled its endless death.

And once...
When it gave us the illusion that we had returned victorious.