No More Hospitals in Aleppo

January 5, 2017

The once smooth sandstone walls,

Now withered with bullet holes,

Concrete structures in ruins,

A grey ash covering the ground like snow.

The streets that once thronged with life,

Now silent, stripped like a flesh from a skeleton.

Left of the marketplace is cracked sidewalks,

Empty gun shells, and deteriorated shops.

Food vendors, women in bright hijabs embroidered with triangle patterns,

And children playing hajla in the marketplace

Gone. Nothing but rubble.

All that remains of hospitals, is demolition.

No glass, no brick, nothing scavengers

Could utilize.

Only a 3 year old boy’s face dusted with rock powder,

War scars, and a vacant face with tearless eyes.

Only heroes in white helmets, sifting through debris,

Scavenging for remains with their pallid hands.

My resting heartbeat matches that of the seconds in one minute.

I lay motionless,

The coral colored candle, smelling like roses, freshens my thoughts,

However, the putrid smell

Of the unburied and bodies buried beneath rubble,

Quickly encompasses my room and poisons my mind.

Just like the war still rages on,

I linger as a white dove far away unable

To take flight.

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