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Ciel Apr 2019
What is the meaning of patriotism?
Has it become synonym to blind loyalty?
Does it mean letting your morals be defined by your government?
Is it turning a blind eye to millions of people starving in another nation because your economy profits on the sale of guns to their oppressors?
Is it believing that one's life is more important than others'
based on where they were born?
Is it being complacent to bombing innocent people one after the other
for what their greedy government or a small percentage of extremists did?
Is it valuing the life of 10 of your citizen
more than a hundred of another country's?
Loving your country is normal
but inherently feeling morally superior to the rest of the world
because you were born within the invisible borders of a country
is idiotic.
Ciel Apr 2019
I look at the horror around me
and see.
I see mothers and fathers helpless
as their hungry infants cry out.
I see men and women uselessly working the arid soil
in a last desperate attempt to feed their starving children.
I see folks weep as they are forced to choose between
nourishing their old parents or their young kids.
I see people so gaunt,
I can count each one of their ribs
as they shiver despite the extremely hot weather.
I see frail once-friends fight over a minuscule piece of bread.
I see a people suffering so greatly and so slowly
that death would come as deliverance to them.

And in the middle of deserted fields, dried up lakes and emaciated kids
stands a black figure.
Not a man nor a woman nor anything in between.
Just a dark ghostly figure holding a golden scale in its right hand.

I am mesmerized by the shadow and cannot help but stare
and although, it has no eyes,
I can feel it is staring back.
My curiosity disappears
as I am suddenly overcome
with a feeling of emptiness.
Ciel Apr 2019
I will tell the world about you.

I will sing it to the birds and the bees,
scream it to the sky and the seas,
even whisper it to the wind and the trees.

I will tell the world about you
and hope it knows about me too.
Ciel Mar 2019
I look at the despair around me
and see.
Men, women and children alike lay
on the ground in a sea of blood.
Their bodies unmoving
with their eyes still open wide in terror
and arrows in their chests.
Victims of a merciless quest,
their corpses decorate the ground
of the village that was once a happy place
but is now but a gory catacomb.

In the middle of the ravaged huts,
stands a woman.
With a silver crown sitting atop golden locks
and lifeless grey eyes,
she bears a white armor
stained with the red of the conquered
and a wooden bow in her left hand.

A frown wrinkles her ivory face,
and as she stares at me,
I am not scared
as I should be at the vision
of this blood-covered figure
but rather,
I am overcome with a feeling
of pity.
This is the second installment of the Four Horsemen Compilation: The conqueror on the white horse.
Ciel Mar 2019
I look upĀ at the chaos around me
and see.
I see people saying their last prayers,
Waiting for their fateful endings,
I hear the church bell toll in its last call,
I feel the suffocating heat from the burning buildings,
I smell the smoke from the ignited city,
I taste the desperation in the air and the bitterness of regrets.

But in the middle of this tumult,
One thing stands out;
One person.

A little boy stands there in a tan attire,
dark gray ash contrasting his almost-white hair
and tears stains on his ivory cheeks.
A grim expression marking his features,
He shakes as if freezing
and although the heat has almost become unbearable,
he stands in the middle of the flames
barefoot yet unharmed.
A scythe lays at his feet,
and a pale horse stands by his side,
making his small body look even smaller.

As if feeling my stare,
he locks eyes with me.

And as the world burns down,
the reflection of the cataclysm in his brown eyes
and the look of innocent incomprehension he wears
is the single most heartbreaking thing in the moment.

Suddenly, I do not care about the screams and cry of the despondent goners.
I do not feel the harsh scorch of the burnt remains under my bare feet.
I do not mind the tears welling up in my eyes due to the fumes.
They are but a distant reminder of the atrocity surrounding me.
I can only focus on the strange guilt reflected in his warm eyes.

From those same eyes, a tear rolls down his cheeks
And as it reaches his dimpled chin,
he raises a little hand to wipe it away
And then waves at me.
I do not wave back,
too stunned to move or react,
But I could tell he did not expect me to anyways.

With one last look,
he picks up the scythe with an unusual easiness
and turns to walk towards the flames,
the horse close behind him.
And soon, they are one with the flames.
The first of the Four Horsemen series of poems: Death. This image came to me in a dream one night.
Ciel Mar 2019
Why do we always expect the people
who tore us down
to be the ones
to build us back up?
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