There’s a fire on top of the rooftops,
Bombs are falling from planes nearby,
people are scrambling for cover,
And help is M.I.A.
Debris falls all around us,
Bricks tumble, our hearts fumble.
We ask ourselves: Will we make it out alive?
We fear for our lives,
We fear for our families,
But the enemy doesn’t care.
We’re gonna need more than a prayer
To get through this hell
that is World War III.
We know there’s no time to wait,
We have to keep going,
Or we may be another target,
Another casualty
of heartbreak.
As we hear the surrounding screams,
We dare not look back,
As the enemy closes in around us
The sounds of gunshots
Bounce off the walls,
And one by one, the loved ones around us,
like dominoes, take the fall.
We dodge, we duck
For cover.
They shoot, fire,
And another casualty
Another loved one
lost.
Our hearts beat faster and faster,
As our hopes of survival are quashed.
Adrenaline courses in our veins,
And time starts to slow down.
We begin to wonder
And ask ourselves once more:
Will we make it out of this hell?
We didn’t ask for this.
We didn’t want this war.
But here we are,
fighting just to survive.
We don’t eat, and we don’t sleep,
All we do is run away
And hope we live to see another night.
This poem is loosely based on collective wars going in the world. The Syrian civil war was the main source of inspiration for this submission. More information about the war can be found here: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/syria