A Minute’sSilence

To the love that slipped from our hands and the trust it left stained.

To the dreams that wandered into darkness and never learned the way back.

To the bodies we once touched that now sleep beneath us, and the secrets only the dead know.

To the daughters harmed by hands that should have kept them safe, and to the parents who learned grief before goodbye.

To the voices in our heads that speak when the light fades, and the nights some of us will never live to see.

To the silence the dead understand better than we do, and the uproar that keeps the living awake.

To those we lost to wars, whose graves received no flowers, and those whose bodies never returned home.

To the love we gave and never received in return, and the tenderness that may finally find us on our deathbeds.