how does God answer when we spit
prayers at Him like blood?
how hungry we are, expecting mercies
we would never give to anyone else
and when God said, punished
we pretended to not know why—
burnt cities in the periphery,
children buried under rubble,
people screaming somewhere beyond,
calamity kept at a pitiful distance—
and we pretended we did not hear it, see it, dream of it.
we pretended we did not see war
until we saw the machete swinging
at our necks and then we pretended
we did not see everyone who died
before we were the prey.
