Title: Orange for Now, Then Red

What about the boy walking home from school
as he slowly peels an orange,
and devours each slice as its juice drips down to his school uniform.
Orange for now, then later red.
Each slice representing a piece of his childhood
that he will never get back.
If only he knew.

The shrieks of a little boy at the peak of a swing’s pendulum, weightless.
What about the girl sitting on her balcony
a day before her 20th birthday?
She rolls up her sleeves
and reveals war graffiti on her wrists.
They are oceans with ripples;
ripples caused by submarines.
She was once told that she was merely a drop of water in this vast world.
Little does she know,
she is the entire ocean.

What about the stray dog
laying on his back and looking up at the sky?
He does not expect anything;
the sky does not warn him
of what is to come.

What about the soldier
that feels like an actor in a theatre?
He is given his script.
Every movement, carefully planned.
To feel comfort,
to justify his acts,
he tells himself that he is just doing his job.
This is a monologue he performs every night
under the dim glow of the setting sun,
a spotlight.
It is a stage.

The sun goes down,
and the stars wake up:
the same number of people
being rushed to the nurse.
The stars have entered her guts
through her nostrils,
hurling around as if she was going to vomit the entire milky way.
She cannot familiarise herself with this feeling.

What about the migrant
who hurriedly packs her bag to return home?
It has been more than five years
that her children have been without her.
The debris makes her feel even more empty;
as empty as a blank space
on a school field trip form.
There is always one missing signature.
She begins to realise
that the butterflies in her stomach
are not butterflies at all,
but moths,
eating away at her intestines.

And yet,
the boy peels another orange,
the girl proudly rolls up her sleeves because
she will not lose to another war.
The stray dog continues to lift his head
upwards towards the stars that remain indifferent,
while the soldier continues to perform his monologue.
The nurse counts pulses on the tips of her fingers,
and the migrant mother takes a deep breath.
Movement, memory, survival.