Small Shoes

Children in a War-Torn Village

Between broken walls & borrowed time,
they’ve learned to make games from danger:
who can name that missile’s whistle,
who can count the seconds between
flash & thunder, who can find
the best pieces of shell casings
to trade like marbles, like pokemon cards,
like their lives aren’t measured in luck.

They know which buildings still have
good hiding places, which rubble piles
hold treasures: half-melted dolls,
bits of mirror to signal friends,
chalk to draw hopscotch boards
on bomb craters. They play tag
through the skeleton of their school,
everyone running from something real.

At night, they sleep in basements
turned blanket forts, turned shelters,
turned childhood’s last stand.
They whisper stories about before,
when streets had names instead of
warning signs, when gardens grew
flowers instead of graves, when
their mothers’ hands didn’t shake

while serving pretend tea in
real broken cups. They dream
in explosions, wake up counting
friends like sheep, like prayers,
like bullets that missed. Tomorrow,
they’ll play another game of survival,
collecting bottle caps & memories
& reasons to keep believing in after.

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