1971

The liberation war of 1971,

Is like an old band-aid,

The wound under which is yet to heal.

Whenever I ask my mother about it, 

I can see the expression on her face visibly change,

Her pale face,

Usually painted with a smile-

Shifting into a red

Mostly of rage,

And somewhat of her inability to have done something about it.

In some corner of this country in a remote village

A man teaches a class of fifth graders,

His orange beard swaying their interest more than his lecture does.

The children shudder at the sound off metal and the thudding of bodies,

Falling to the floor,

Sounds they had never heard before. 

The kind man, 

Father of seven,

Looks into the unsure eyes of the boy staring at him,

Looking,

For some reassurance, 

The boy finds the hollow of his own eyes reflected right back at him.

In a quiet corner of the city,

The nurse whispers,

It’s a girl. 

Her cries muffled by the cloth stuck to her mouth. 

In that dimly lit cabin, 

In the dark abandoned hallways of the hospital,

The newborn with her mother hidden under the hospital bed,

Her brothers standing guard,

But for what?

They cannot fend themselves from the monsters strutting about,

Clad in green-

AK-47 in hand

Shooting into crowds of civilians,

Raping and killing women,

Snatching little children from their mother’s arms,

Like tearing cacti off of the soft arms that tuck you in at night.

Somewhere in the middle of the city,

A small boy

Not old enough to know any fear other than his angry mother telling him to finish his supper

Hides in his closet behind his father’s coats

His eyes peering through the crack in the closet,

Not wanting to watch but also

Unable to tear his eyes away from what is happening in front him,

Tears held back by a thin sheet of the fear,

Radiating from his chest all through his body,

Witnesses the boogeymen undress his mother

As they drop her to the floor,

His father’s soulless body next to hers,

As they muffle her whimpers

Until they can only be heard in his head. 

This cycle spread across the entire country, 

A plague of the will for dominance that rules the hearts of men-

We stand today on our own feet with pride,

Yet the scars on our feet 

From the thorns that we had walked on,

Have not yet healed. 

Born from the blood smeared on the lush fields of green,

Under blue skies of white patches.

Never has a blue sky been more deceiving.