Year 1 - When the streets learned our voices

We left our homes and found each other.
Raised signs. Steady voices.
Fear softened, just briefly.
The streets held our hope.

Year 2 - Power wears a uniform

They answered us with weapons.
Control arrived in boots, in curfews,
in the sound of doors kicked open.
Obedience was demanded.
Silence was enforced.
 

Year 3 - Leaving becomes survival

Some of us stayed. Some of us couldn’t.
We slipped across borders, across oceans,
across versions of ourselves.
Leaving was survival.
 

Year 4 - The lie repeats itself

Noise ruled at home.
Silence answered abroad.
Headlines moved on and the truth was lost 
 

Year 5 - Fire does not ask permission

Homes turned to targets. School turned to targets.
People learned the sound of the sky breaking.
There was no front line, only civilians,
only children, only ash.

Still, hope refuses to die

Five years have passed.
Devastation everywhere.
And yet something smolders.
keeping alive our dreams
of the future that was taken from us.

Artwork and text by JC who is receiving support from The Kite Tales.