an explosion outside

I wake up to

an explosion outside

thin walls rumbling and cracking

under pressure.

-

My tired body

falls out out of bed

with clothes already on

hurtling towards the darkness outside.

-

The great black

is interrupted

here and there

by glowering flames

-

which lick at the night

as though they have been starved,

which have licked at people’s faces

and has left their bodies devastated.

-

As buildings fall,

whistling occupies the sky

a deafening blood horn

calling for the end

-

the ash piling high,

the taste unforgettable.

-

In a broken mirror

which lies in the grey street

I see the fragments of my own body, too

and try to forget the visual,

-

try to deny the inevitable

though I feel death’s cold fingers

wrapping themselves around my neck.

-

It’s hard to sleep

when all that you’ve known is dead,

when your childhood home is still-warm rubble

housing a gentle flame you can’t quite extinguish.

-

It’s hard to sleep

when it should have been you

but instead, you must sit,

wide awake through late nights

-

surrounded by the ghosts of

your schoolmates

your family members

your loved ones

-

and still are helpless

and still are threatened

and still must live

when it seems there is nothing to live for

-

but Death,

-

delayed ever so slightly.