War (one)

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War (one)

It’s been two days
She hasn’t had a single grain to eat.
And the wretched baby on her arm doesn’t stop crying.
She knows it is not the poor child’s fault,
The milk in her breasts have dried
And it is frustrated by sucking at her withered nipples.

She has been looking at every nook and corners
Of the war-ravaged city for food
But it’s not easy given that so many others are doing the same thing
Yesterday a fight broke out between two men
When both pulled at the same rotten bread
One was about to stab the other with a glass shred
When she ran away from there.

The heat and exhaustion numbs her body
and she dozes off to the time
when everything was normal
and the war was like a never-happening nightmare.
When children played noisily in the streets and
The smell of freshly cooked food
aroused delight and craving in the passer-by’s mind.

The thought of the food
and the pain of present hunger
jerks her rudely off her patchy dreams.
It is dark and dreary around
with uninterrupted sounds of firing in the distance.

She gathers her ragged bundle,
clutches the baby close to her
and prepares for the night to come.