Atrocities in Afghanistan

By Zarin Bakhshzaad
The bangs were exchanged in rapid succession,
Fireworks that sparked and spiralled,
Invisible demons that kicked up great plumes of dust,
One found its target and burrowed into a chest,
Leaving in its wake a river of crimson,
Staining the sand with the aftermath of violence,
The desert rose up in a frenzy incited by the onslaught against its terrain,
Blinding the vision of both assailants and trembling onlookers,
An army of sand that masked the depravity of humanity,
A bloodstained child crouched behind a lone rock,
A granite solider that shielded her from the downpour of bullets,
Bullets that claimed the lives of soldiers of flesh,
Uncaring to the many families that would be left to namelessly mourn,
And one by one the soldiers left,
Leaving the terrorists free to claim what they sought,
Leaving those they swore to protect vulnerable to the malicious whims of tyrants,
Leaving a child clutching her brother,
A gaping hole sculpting his face with the promise of eternal stillness,
And then her brother too torn from her hands,
Left to rest in a bed of dirt,
Underneath soil saturated in blood,
In a land that was left to forever bleed,
Bleed as it’s daughters were forcefully married off to monsters,
Monsters who vowed to chain and silence them for the rest of their lives,
Lives that they are forced to live in accordance to their whims,
Whims that promised brutality and violence,
Violence that struck fear so deep into the hearts of citizens they fled,
Fled through immigration or other more dangerous means,
Means that left a father clinging to the undercarriage of a plane abandoning his son,
His son watching his father plummets to the ground as the plane lifted into the air,
A metal eagle with unwanted passengers who in their desperation forfeited their lives,
Leaving a mess for the airport staff to clean up,
But some stains will never be washed,
The thin capillaries of blood have gripped Afghanistan with an unrelenting force,
The death of students, children, mothers, fathers, relatives,
The ledger cannot be erased,
And the war has gone in for so long that those who must listen have become desensitised,
After all, it will only upset them,
After all it’s so much easier to ignore,
To forget,
But the children will not forget,
How the world failed them,
And robbed from them their future.