The Ruins Watch Me Grow

I entered the world through chopping air,

blades shredding the sky into ribbons of dust.

The wind carried the taste of diesel,

a bitterness that never left my tongue.

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Men in helmets poured water into our hands,

eyes hidden behind mirrored glass.

Even their kindness trembled,

as if mercy itself might detonate.

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I chased after them barefoot,

not for bullets or power,

but for pencils to draw the sky,

for candy that melted too fast in the sun—

small proofs that sweetness still existed.

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I learned to play among ruins,

walls collapsing into ash,

bones jutting up like broken roots.

Blood dried black in the dirt,

a stain that rain could not forgive.

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At night, I curled beneath gunfire,

each burst a hammer striking stone.

Convoys shook the earth,

and my dreams rattled inside me.

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My childhood was not toys and stories

but gathering shrapnel in the dust,

pocketing twisted metal

as if it were treasure.

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They said we’d be safer,

that our country would be stronger.

But they left like storms leaving the mountains,

sudden, without goodbye—

and all that remains

are ruins that watch me grow.

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