The Game

They speak in tongues of thunder,

polished boots on marble floors,

and tell us we are chosen,

to bleed for glory,

to march for flags

that never weaved warmth for our kin.

 

They sit in chambers lined with portraits,

where power plays chess with the lives of the unnamed,

and they call it duty,

call it destiny,

call it a necessary fire.

 

But whose hands stoke the flame?

Not the child with calloused palms.

Not the grandmother counting coins for bread.

Not the silent worker folded into the shift

while the war drums echo on screens.

 

They cry “nation!” - but mean empire, (Or Corporation) .

They cry “security!” - but mean silence, (Nothing to see here... move on... move on).

They cry “sacrifice!” - but never cut

the cloth of their own banquet table. 

 

And still we are summoned.

To cheer, to march, to die…. to forget

our own divinity.

What right have they?

These kings in borrowed crowns,

these prophets of profit

who baptise greed in the name of order?

 

This is no holy war.

This is theatre.

A stage of flags and fallen.

And we? We are the audience and the actors,

lulled to sleep by anthems

whose notes were stitched in boardrooms.

 

But what if we awoke?

 

What if one soul,

then another,

stood at the edge of the illusion

and refused the part?

 

What if we remembered the name

beneath the uniform,

the story behind the border,

the face behind the fear?

 

There is no righteous game in using others.

There is no sacredness in turning children into shields.

There is no justice in forging gold from grief.

 

So come,

you watchers from the margins,

you wanderers with questions,

you quiet ones

who feel the tremble beneath your ribs,

 

You are not alone.

 

Lift the veil.

Break the script.

Let them hear your silence like thunder.

 

There is a power greater

than the state,

than the sword,

than the stage,

 

It is the awakened heart,

the seeing eye,

the voice that says:

“I am not yours to spend... I am not yours to spend!”