A Child of War.



As she lies bleeding,

a girl who skipped and hopped her way to school,

all of nine and a half years old,

with ribbons in her hair and a laugh that was her parent’s pride.


As she lies bleeding,

shrapnel lodged in her torn stomach,

she stares at her skipping rope,

blood soaking it the colour of tomatoes her mother buys.


As she lies bleeding,

she sees human shapes all around, thick in the black smoke,

blurred visions of scattering feet, 

shoes left behind,

hearing nothing but the pinging in her blown-out eardrums.


As she lies bleeding,

she slips away and then she is dead,

a mangled heap of a nine and a half year old girl,

whose laugh was her parent’s pride.


As she lives imprisoned,

shackled in the dungeons of oppression,

the thirst for freedom burning bright,

firm in the belief that her people shall one day seize freedom’s light.


As she lies bleeding and hungry and treated like dirt,

in Syria,

Yemen,

Palestine,

Soweto,

Burma,

The Congo,

in Favellas,

and in far too many more places to mention,

in slums the world over,

in ghettos,

refugee camps, 

confined to the horrors of fours walls, always closing in.


She is the innocent victim,

of religious bigotry,

neo-imperialism,

neo-colonialism,

sectarianism,

oppression,

terrorism,

greed,

that plunders the innocence from her once sparkling eyes.


As she lies bleeding,

a little nine and a half year old girl,

whose laugh was her parent’s pride,

who always walked by her mother’s side,

we know she will bleed more,


today,

tomorrow,

indefinitely,

with shrapnel lodged in her small stomach, ripped open and torn.


As she lies bleeding,


A Child of War.