Via Justine De Fant

Somewhere

In the world, hidden beneath a concrete bridge,
a child lays on jagged rocks his stomach crying from hunger
In the country adjacent from him the sound of gunshots
fly against the wind screaming for peace, finding only pieces
Of flesh, of animals, of abandoned concrete homes

Somewhere in the world, a soldier comes home to no expecting arms.
No warm embraces with the halls of the airport filled only with strangers,
while imaginary bullets force him to duck beneath the cold wooden table
in the corner of a diner. People stare.
“What’s wrong with him?”

Somewhere a young child watches through blurred vision,
the heavy weight of of his father’s coffin being lowered into the earth.
On to his shoulders. He stares into the sun drenched sky and cries
“Why me, God?”

Somewhere, someone bursts through the fragile glass doors of a hospital
Frantic breaths asking a single question, somber eyes answering

“You’re too late.”

In some dismal reality from our own,
dust settles over unopened letters
Unrequited love decorates pictures
with frames turned upside down

Somewhere, in an unjust, dismal corner of this planet
Spinning in tune with the broken, uneven promises of hope
there’s only a vast abyss rife with hopelessness,
half-baked effort, regrets and what ifs

But here

Here, there is the silent stillness beneath the dark clouds
The half crescent moon a mirror of your smile and mine
The warmth of my fingers curling between yours
And under the canopy of the stars, there’s only me and you
and the grass beneath our bodies, conforming to the shape of our embrace

Today, in this moment, a fraction of the span of our lives,
there is more than what is infinitely imagined
I’ll say we’re the lucky ones and you’ll reply
there’s no such thing
There is only life and there is only this moment

Here, beautiful and messy with our shadows dancing beneath the night
With the future as fragile as the crisp breeze traveling between warm bodies
You tell me not to worry love

That maybe someday we’ll be different
And maybe someday we’ll hate what once was
We’ll push with burdened hearts. Scratch and cry
“You didn’t try hard enough”

And the bruises we hide beneath our ribs will hurt more with each expansion of our lungs

As if every breath that presses against the wounds is just another reminder

And all this will become a memory we will lock within ourselves
We’ll spurn the promises we shared
Wishing we never knew what love was

But that day is not now

Because in this world, tender beneath the stars and cloudy skies 
There is only my soul reaching for yours.
And in the morning, they will awake within the embrace of each other.
You tell me, “now is all that matters.”

And where the the birds sing to the rhythm of my heartbeat against yours,
with the music of the earth in harmony with what I know to be true,
your lips meet mine
And I am overcome