RUPTURES IN THE AORTA

 

The Sudden Breach

The morning shattered like a dropped glass mirror
no siren warned the sky to change its hue.
The earth became a sudden, violent river
swallowing the quiet world we knew.

A single blast rewrote the city's lines
and tore the future from the kitchen floor.
We learn too late how fast a life declines
when peace is swallowed by the throat of war.

 

The Slow Attrition

It is not just bombs that break a state
but months of waiting in the endless dark,
the quiet, creeping venom of the hate
that leaves a cold and permanent mark.

The walls still stand but trust has turned to dust -
a million tiny fractures in the soul.
We learn to sleep in camouflage and rust
and wonder if we ever will be whole.

 

The Aftermath

The guns are quiet, the smoke has cleared
the treaties signed with formal hands.
But fields are ruined where crops appeared
and grief is mapped across the wounded lands.

The soldiers carry battles in their sleep
the mothers search the rubble for a name.
The scars of war run silent and run deep
long after they have put away the flame.

***
And yet, deep in the ruins, a faint fire remains
a breath in the darkness enduring the pain.
For what has been shattered may rise from decay
through cracks in the soul, it finds its own way..

 

Vasiliki Dragouni

Painting: “HEART OF ODYSSEUS” by Georgina Tsismalidou