You can taste the disaster at the tip of your tongue,
It tastes like metal and saw.
Your heart seems to be frozen after a beat,
Chains binding your breath.
There are bullets scraping by your nose,
The sky and no one else is witness to the harm.
Your eyes are clamped shut in a prayer,
And you can feel your eyeballs roll to the back.
You can smell blood and grime mixed with raw dirt,
And your feet are bruised.
The scratched lines on your body
Seem like the airplanes that leave a cloud of gas trailing.
This is not what you were hoping for.

You can taste fear,
It tastes like the sourest of lemons mixed with
The bitterest of medicines.
The guns must now be reloaded
And the firing will start again.

Silence is the best music.
You can feel your frozen heart begin to crack.
The prayer has ended.
The cloud of gas has faded
And the motors of the planes have died down.
You can open your eyes now, it’s over.

For the bullets have finished.