Lines in the Sand

For my sixth birthday
I wanted a doll; instead
they gave me a rifle
and a box of bullets.

“Fucking shoot at something!”
they shouted. “Shoot the trees
for starters.” But I was too small,
too weak, to even hold the thing.

We played hopscotch
on the sand. “This ain’t no party,”
they said. Made us dig graves
with our bare hands.
“Fresh out of shovels,”
the bastards lied.

We knelt to pick flowers;
they crushed them underfoot.
Beat us with sticks; told us,
“Clean up the river.
Filth attracts filth.”

To them, just so much flotsam –
the corpse of a girl – braids
that drifted
like green-ribbon
on brackish water.

Next day it was one of us –
a boy of nine who’d tried
to run away. Forced to watch
as he pissed himself.
Then they shot him.
Point blank.

Given up as infants;
a disposable commodity.
Orphanage fodder
to be plundered at will;
our one misdemeanour – being born.
You can’t fight evil like that
with Kalashnikovs...

Malevolence that rumbles on
and on like distant thunder
in rag-torn skies
above their precious land
where independence
reigns supreme.

Where only the hyena
roams free. Where innocence
will never come again
and only the lavender
stands tall. Still waiting
to be gathered.