Villain

There are stories here, stained into this weathered rock,

Stories of the past lay all around you,

Lives of people remembered as nothing more than a red stain dried up long ago.

There’s pain here, marred straight into stone,

Blasts tore this land to screaming shards.

Perhaps one day a bullet will be found and claimed as a fossil,

The same goes for the bodies of these lost souls.

Shame, isn’t it?

All this death, scarring the land for years to come.

This once breathtaking field, marked forever by the stench of death.

See this mark, this petty stain over here?

That boy was nineteen, his brains lie somewhere over there.

A hero, they called him, for taking out thirtysix people with one toss of a grenade.

And over here, a caring nurse was felled.

Forty-one years young, she took a blade through the heart, her blood still spatters this spot.

A traitor, they called her, for daring to help a twelve year old child who had been labelled as the ‘enemy’.

Villains, they called us,

Every life who fought for their lives on this field,

So many souls never made it home.

A massacre, they called it, for the death of so many.

A tragedy, they called it, when they forced thousands to flee and die along harsh roads.

A thing of the past, they called it, as they built a bypass atop the sacred land.

Villains, we called them, for the desecration of everything we held dear.

Villains, we called them, once we were again forced to leave.

Villains, we called them, after even our pride was stripped away.