When the war fell, it fell with no warning.
Machine gun fire cut through the schoolyards
and the shopping malls, the graveyards
filling up like the churches.

When the bombs fell, they burnt out the buildings
and the shells of old homes stood like jagged
testaments toward human fallibility.
Centuries of labor reduced to dust.

When the silence fell, it was full and complete
like a thick fog atop the cityscape.
The world, a museum of history,
burnt and scarred, forever in its silent fury.

When the war fell, it fell with no warning.
I took you in my arms and locked the window,
turning into you while the night fell around us,
waiting out the end of existence.

When the world awoke, like a sigh,
we were there, breathing it in.
The smoke and the dust and the ash
bursting in our lungs, sweet scented survival.