Tears of Youth

January 2022.

Written by: Haya A. Elmizwghi

Edited by: Hadeel Tashani
Reviewed by: Rehad Elgadi
Published by: Fasila

Awake from slumber;
so innocent, so fragile;
a creature in the night.

The last breath,
still lingering on my lips.
Oh, where did it go?

I dare not rise, for what I see;
a sight of pain; a sight of tragedy.

I feel the wetness of my tears,
as they rain down upon my skin;

tears of color; tears of light;
tears of innocence; tears of youth.

A memory surfaces of a land of dreams;
sounds of hope; sounds of joy;
sounds of innocent laughter, childish games,
and angelic days passing by.

All I hear now is silence,
and the sound of my own heartbeat.

I look around to see my fellow peers,
drunken in a sugar-glazed lie; an illusion before our eyes.
Oh, how we were such fools to believe.

All I see now is black and white; where has all the color gone?
To a place of happiness; a place of hope;
a reality long since burnt to ash.

In the puddle of my own tears,
all I see now is the image of what I used to be;
so innocent, so carefree, before the clutches of reality took hold.

A blink, and it fades away,
leaving behind a different look, a different feel, and a different me;
subjected to the cruelty of the world and how we made it be.

Tears now roam freely from my ducts to my neck;
rainbow tears of every color;
the last bit of light; the last sip of youth.

As I say goodbye to the last of my tears,
my innocence, and a forgotten memory, I gaze upon the leaving sun;
its lilting glow; a speck on the fading horizon.

Innocence is such a fragile thing;
so easily broken, so badly bruised;
an illusion in the minds of the old;
a reality in the minds of the new.

As I lay there in my angelic cot,
tears of color raining down once more,
I see the world for what it truly is;

a dark, merciless place, made that way by soulless demons;
a victim of cruelty, pain, and torment.
We both have that in common.

I lay and watch the sun trail its course,
escaping the clutches of the night,
as it has done a thousand times before,
as it will do a thousand times more,

whilst darkness takes its place, filling the empty space,
and maturity takes its hold.