No heroes at the end of the world—
the true victors of war are the ones
who never marched into its jaws.

As we cut ourselves open, bleeding
for vampires dressed in flags, and their
banquet halls lit by the glow of decay.
Peasants pluck strings to soften the silence,
headlines stir the *** with trembling hands—
there's a choir of parasites spoon-feeding us
the intestines of the public.

Tell me—are you able to stomach it, or do
you swallow it whole and call it real news?

And still, the feast grows— tapeworms
engorge themselves, while the gorge between
heart and soul splits wider, and wider with every
swallowed promise. The architecture of ruin
rises brick by brick, each monument another tomb.

Love, too, becomes another empire of hunger:
crowns pressed down like executioner’s blades,
and those jewels that cut deeper than they shine.
To call someone King or Queen is to chain yourself
to their downfall, to wear loyalty like shackles,
and to find devotion rotting beneath their gold.

But here, at the end, there is only silence,
there is only dust, only the hollow crown—
and no heroes at the end of the world.

Ever since we gained consciousness
We were-
Taught to slit throats; not algebra and geometry
Handed not cricket bats but automated rifles

Taught not to play but to hang them by the tree
Dressed not in uniforms but bandanas over our forehead.
Sworn not to education but to shoot heartlessly

We raided a village and killed the head
Took some more of their kind
Decapitated; watched the green turn red
We smoked their temple; raised our flag
Watch the light fade
As they fell into eternal nap.

Their forces marched with guns and bombs
But mostly useless; for we hid among shadows
We reigned over branches and slit them when they least expected.
We had sworn our loyalty when we hadn't learnt to speak
We felt no joy; no sorrow
We didn't know what our future would be,
Would it be a death in the form of a bullet?
Would it be called normalcy?

One raid complete- forced to fight the next
We were always fighting for they said we were the best,
All of us had our appetite for blood,
I robbed a mother of her child-
Snapped the little thing right in front of her.
Shot one up his ******,
Plucked one off his ear-
A girl my age watched with horror, the advocacy of a Devil-
Smeared in mahogany red with gushes of fluid splashing on my face.
I gripped the machete, ready to strike
But her eyes were an aegis of her own-
An iron resistance against something that had never felt warmth,
My heart ached as if Hell was gavelling every part of me.
To tear that perfect face of hers- To gouge out her aegis with my warhammer.
Every step towards her felt heavy, so I pulled out my pistol
Aiming right towards her, my finger jammed as if the metacarpals were commanding me to stop.
I had like a Godman bestowed mercy upon her to cover up my inability to blow her the Death kiss.

As I turned the other side, a bullet flew beside my ear-
The "swoosh" rapidity bedazzled me
With anxiety and fear, I turned my back
To see my Dead Deity,
The comrade shot her dead- his unholiness pierced through her shield.
A string passed through my head and it gifted me a memory;
Of us playing in the sand building castles
Of us going to school together
Never had I seen the beach,
Never had I experienced learning,
So what was that?

After the raid was done, I plucked a blood-stained daisy and placed it over her dead body.
And to this day, I think
How life would've been
If it was different and she was with me.

What is the value of a life
Of a husband or a wife 
Of a daughter or a son.

Do these labels give value to one,
More so over the other?

Is a wife less valuable than a mother,
A father more valuable than a son?

Does value rise or fall
as one becomes another?

Surely every life can't be worth the same!
Can it?

 I wonder.
Is a peasants life,
of less value than a kings!

Or does Status, Creed, Race, or Color,
truly, not mean a **** thing?

It is true that I would place my
wife, my son, and my brothers
life over that of another.

But that value is given to them only by me.
No life is worth more
than any other in reality.

Yet until we can open
our hearts and minds to see.

The true value of life will never be!

In the sky as the children gazed,
They saw not a prism of rainbow
But ***** of fire-
Burning orange, reeking of death.

"Ceasefire, they said" the words betrayed
A mother of two lay dead
A father of three; beheaded

The echoes of joy, no longer reciprocated;
Only the cold shrill of silence repeated,
"Abbu, run faster" "Ammi ! Behena ! Bhai !

The skyline burnt with the missile's glare,
Children- elder, in smoke- filled air
With each minute; a corpse found,
Their homes now buried underground.

Their leaders chant "We'll avenge, we'll maim!"
So they trade blood in the same old game-
Missiles for Missiles, name for name.

The cartographer's pen trembles
Drawing borders in erased pencil,
While the land bleeds real ink.

Hospitals bombarded, Cities destroyed,
Only the schools remain,
But what use of it?
There are no students left to train?

At the UN, they count the toll
While the cemeteries overflow-
Your calculators can't handle the numbers!
The suffered missed on countless Decembers.

Oh God! What sins have they to repent?
How many dawns must break?
Before the children see a rainbow again.

No more poignant photographs.
No more signs of the times.
No more war stories.
No more scars with stories.
No more stories that scar.
No more futures dashed.
No more glass smashed.
No more Heroes.
No more ‘we rose
From the ashes.
The ashes will be too thin,
Blown too far apart by the toxic winds.
This cannot be a remix
Icarus eyes have killed the Phoenix.

There is no future,
There is no past,
When we face the atom blast.