Broken Wing

By Aakash Gupta

I felt the fading warmth

When the bullet pierced her beautiful skin

And took the sparkle from her eyes

to the end of my world.

I buried my screams with her

Before my daughter could sense

I tucked her blanket of death

And recite her a lullaby.

She wakes many times

swarms of fighter jets

"Daddy, where's mommy?"

"She is in one of the airplanes" I replied, regrets.

She asked about her many many times

my tongue was tied in the same wines of lies

While we transferred to a bunker

She slept early as there was no day, there was no night.

Fingers can count, the grains we had left

Could hear the heartbeats as the silence crept

Clutched my daughter as hard as I could

raining bullets, not water as it should

Into air with hope and away from suffocated fear

I came out after seven days, from between the metal thorns

Tears rolled down when I smelled bombs and devastation was clear

Drenched with blood and warning horns.

Everyone cried with joy and prayed

When they heard that dust has settled

I felt the warmth after eighteen days

"Look Daddy, Mommy's coming"she said upon seeing planes.

I have seen a blind man cry

After a war where everyone dies

My daughter still after a butterfly

Running after her while she flies.

I'm sitting on ruins, maybe someone's grave

Wanting to see the sun but hoping for rain

And wind can haul the death clouds far away

Behind the mountains where they seem unseen.

My daughter rushed towards me

With a butterfly in her hand, had a broken wing

"Isn't she beautiful Daddy", she asked

I just smiled, while the world grinned.

By Aakash Gupta