War is a function of time, counting moments until our breathing ceases due to lack of satisfaction. War does not have a rhythm you can reciprocate.
War breathes an enemy that is invisible.
War walks into sunshine while the vestiges of our love, pride and identity remain out on display, with us realizing the rebels who have stayed behind held a torch for the days we’ve lost.
War is not a function of today’s truth because truth has been made perfunctory, made casual in moments and of superficial whims by outsiders who care not for our tomorrows.
War is true only when blood spills, our children breathing skin of a similar color, with tinny smells and borne a future of no design. We wait but we do not inhale, and we do not believe until the axe drops.
Submission becomes the expected because the fringes of this war are built on generations of oppression that have gone by the wayside.
We have become complicit.
We cease to wake with thought, instead depending on those of a lighter shade who curry out favor for gains above our heads.
Blood they remain unaware of, only thinking of thinner expectations and skin that ought to not break.
They do not wake with us on their minds.
War is a function of us understanding time and its consequence, of the outsiders who came to save us having never saved themselves.
They are not our saviors.
We are theirs.