I do not know what war is called,
I only know my tummy growls,
A sound that’s louder in the night,
Than all the bombs that fall like owls.
I do not know why Mama cries,
Her hands shake when she hides the bread,
She tells me, “Sleep, it’s almost dawn,”
But I can’t sleep. I’m scared instead.
My brother used to hold my hand,
He’d hum a song when lights went out.
Now Mama hums, her voice is cracked—
He sleeps beneath a shattered house.
The sky keeps shouting down at us,
I never shouted back, I swear.
I don’t know why it hates our street,
Or why the fridge is mostly air.
I dream of apples, juicy red,
But wake up tasting only dust.
I lick my fingers after meals—
Though there was nothing. Just because.
I look at grown-ups, wide and still,
Their mouths are thin, their voices low.
They look like they forgot to breathe,
Like maybe they don’t want to know.
I used to play with dolls and stones,
Now every stone has blood or ash.
My doll’s arm broke the day we ran—
She still can’t wave, or fight, or ask.
What have we done to starve like this?
What game did we forget to play?
Was there a rule we didn’t learn—
That let the world just look away?
If I could speak to those who eat,
Who sleep without a fear or flame,
I’d say: I’m just a child, like yours.
But no one calls me by my name.
Tonight, again, I’ll count the stars,
And wish they’d drop a loaf of bread.
Or maybe just a hand to hold—
Or maybe just a place to bed.
The hunger isn’t just inside—
It’s in the silence, in the stone.
And I, a child with hollow eyes,
Can’t understand why I’m alone.
What have we done? What have we done?
To be so small, and still so feared?
The world once promised “never again,”
But maybe… no one really heard.
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