WHILE WE STILL BREATHE

We are born of dust,
lent to the light
for the briefest sip of time.
Our hands, soft with morning,
are made for holding,
not for fists,
not for triggers.

Yet see,
we sharpen borders
like knives,
stack bones like bricks,
trade silence for thunder,
and call it progress.

The fruit with a face
points a gun at the sky,
and we cheer,
as if smoke was salvation,
as if fire meant freedom.

We write poems on ash.
We burn the orchard.
We forget
that even hatred
must one day
die.

And still,
the wind waits
to carry what’s left
of our better selves,
should we ever
remember
how to live.