I woke up today with the bitter taste
Of cinders in my mouth.
And then I remembered.
Yesterday I had killed
Two men, a woman
And a child.
I had grasped the borrowed AK-47
My sweaty fingers slipping,
The hot blood metal smell
In my nostrils as I
Pulled the trigger and let fly
A staccato of bullets.
One,
For the wife I’d lost
The night they came plundering
Looking for those that spoke
A different tongue,
Worshipped different gods.
Two,
For the unborn child
That was to have borne my name
And now will never know
The light of day.
The third,
For the sleepy gray years they snatched
From my father aged eighty-three
As he slept under his favourite tree.
And one more,
For all the dreams they killed
In a house now silent as a grave.
The night they came and marked
Battle lines in blood.
And so it’s only fair that they pay
An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
As they say.
That is as much justice as a man can expect
On this earth.
They told me,
Revenge is sweet, brother,
And that is what you must claim
For yourself
And so I did.
I paid them back:
Bullet for bullet, life for life.
Why then do their screams shatter
The stillness of my dreamless nights
Why this bitter taste
Of cinders in my mouth?
Be the first to comment