No More Martyrs

Perhaps these words I writ with treason-

blood of this land with venomous humanity

Imprison me if my tongue dare lie

liberty I shall hold my truthful right.

My heart does not swell with pride

when children of our rivers run treacherous

It does not ache for victory to bask

above the ashes in lay their hearts.

I run amok this dirt so damp

covering my hands with the blood of my own

When the children are soaked in past and red

how is the tricolor worthy to live and end?

Which whispers echo my ears

as my footsteps imprint graveyards

A song for the martyrs glorious and bright

or an elegy for this nation static in time?

A life worth a billion stories

reduced to a single feat of deemed greatness

The dead are plenty for the ghosts to moan

yearning for the children they have never borne.

If every word I utter pushes me closer to death

If every word I utter makes me a traitor

Then so be it!

Why must I choose this abstraction of a nation over my own people?

Wouldn't I be so cruel to put my loyalty above

The lives of inhabitants, whose existence evades me

Wouldn't I be a disgrace to humane law

To think I am God and punish the flawed.

If these are your only accomplishments

decades of history inconsequential but martyrdom

You must hang your head in shame of insignificance

and instead I see you govern with your indifference.

You would win this war you created

stepping on corpses you have sacrificed

I want no war, no pain, no blood

Then tell me how are you the patriot?

No more martyrs.