Sober Sundays
Sober Sundays
Young Men Drifting Out of the Station
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Young Men Drifting Out of the Station

#Prompt 11

Everyone will always remember how we came home

The way bodies piled like unanswered questions

Bent bodies

Scarred bodies

Hungry bodies, - you  could tell

ribs standing out like piano keys

voices hoarse from screaming each other’s names

in bloody fields that looked just like our homes.

If we were home…

Why did we fight?

If we didn’t fight,

Would we be alive?

This semblance of living,

our shoulders knew best

they carried our dreams

our children,

our guns

our grief

Another person’s war,

too frail to carry other bodies.

So we dragged them

away from the fields

into the whistling boxes, sat with our wounded

And tried to convince ourselves that we were

the victors


While responding to this prompt, I realized that I was thinking about Biafra and the Nigerian Civil war. The music in the background is the Biafra National Anthem. I just wanted to share that. I’m definitely developing this prompt into something more.

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