I have exploited this land

And depleted it of its resources.

I hear it takes the blood of a thousand worth their weight in gold.

I had no ties to the cold except I was desensitized.

I heard that no one dies.

No man’s bomb blows a baby’s bead to pieces

Amid boundary conflicts.

Media lies and says everything’s fine

But whose head is impaled by the stake,

Lined fences with the faces of traitors.

They just wanted clean drinking water

And a place to settle in the dust.

The line that enforces the distance between me and God.

I saw him take the life out of the ones who had the most to live for.

And made the years long and grueling for those who stuck around.

I heard my own mother say she’d rather sweep the rapture under the rug.

The occasion only called for Sunday best

But he showed up in a shroud and holes in his wrist.

Just across the water lies paradise.

The waves, like a ballroom floor,

Frozen in their sway

As they dance their feet to nubs,

In search of a cure before the dawn of the seventh plague.