The contest brochure says
peace is a dialogue,
it has five letters when spelt,
two syllables when pronounced,
harmony is its synonym
but how can this word be felt
when my tongue is dry
from swallowing dust?
You look at me from the outside,
busy calculating my sufferings,
teaching me my own story
from a distance while I am
watched burning alive
in the heat of the camp,
my skin baking under a plastic tarp
like raw fish left too long
in the midday sun.
To write of peace,
I must look at the sea,
the world watches the water
and sees danger
but I choose to brave
the inferno of the roaring waves
because I am only safe
where the deep water drowns me,
far away from the crocodiles
waiting on the shore.
They want me to sing
a beautiful song of change
but the war never escaped me,
I left my home behind
to escape the fire only to find
that I brought the burning
inside my chest,
so I sit beneath a sky
that belongs to everyone else,
gazing up at the clouds
to appease my being,
screaming for a peace
that remains completely out of reach.
I am an unmade home,
singing to the sky even if
there is no one left to hear
and if peace ever arrives
it will not recognize me
because I have already
been rewritten into something
that cannot be called back.
