In the house that smells like oregano and crushed olives
— beside the fireplace where wood spits splinters
of fire into everyone’s eyes —
we sit to watch the world
on a lone T.V. hanging limp like fruit dying on a tree.

Words that should count as violence pour endlessly:
pictures dodder into frame like a nervous lover confessing
everything as an account of carnage
each one more ear-splitting than the last.

A frail woman with eyes that seem to say “pain
touches us all indiscreetly in the most sacred places”
mishears the word ‘run’ as ‘burning’

She nods softly; because words are too feeble to escape a throat
strangling with the truth.
Perhaps, in war, everything means the same thing.

Baba says if you stand still enough you can evade the shaking
If you become like a body of water, talentness of noise
you can ignore the countries of human bodies crumbling
under the weight of unbearable ignorance.

On the screen a man who moves like he’s lost everything
shouts into his hands while holding a child’s hat
almost as limp as the T.V.
And you finally turn away to cry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Isabella Mendes from Pexels