The Siege

 

The air hangs thick with dust and famine’s ache,

A whispered prayer for morning never break.

The walls that held our history, our pride,

Now hold the starving and the ones who’ve died.

The water turns to bitter, brackish silt,

And every child becomes a name on guilt.

The bells that called to worship, now they toll

A constant knell for each departed soul.

The silence is a weapon, sharp and slow,

Between the sounds of mortar, wind, and woe.

A mother holds a boy with hollow eyes,

Beneath the roof where shattered plaster lies.

He asks for bread, and her own stomach cries,

She’ll weave a story filled with hopeful lies.

The last dog disappears from alleys dark,

No hunger now for just its final bark.

every face, the same despair is etched,

A map of pain the long siege has not fetched.

The lines at wells are filled with muted dread,

As buckets rise with grief in place of thread.

No laughter sounds from children at play,

Just whispered questions for a brighter day.

The sick and old, like brittle branches snap,

And fill the quiet with a gaping gap.

The market stalls are emptied, dust motes dance

Where vibrant colors gave the world a chance.

Now shadows stretch and lengthen with days,

Reflecting back the enemy’s cold gaze.

The watchmen on the parapets stand grim,

Their city’s spirit fading to a whim.

They see the enemy, a patient host,

And know what hope and history have lost.

At night, the city is a single breath,

A gasp of living in the arms of death.

The moon, a coin of cold and silver hue,

Reflects the broken things that once were new.

And every dream is filled with open doors,

And fields of green along forgotten shores.

But dawn arrives with smoke and bitter cold,

Another day for stories left untold.