Moon at Half Past Noon

(I am the militia, I am the ghost, I am the son)

I return not as a man,
but as a question,
posed to a land
that no longer knows my name.

The road home was a fuse,
now burnt to its end.
My boots crunch on the ruins—

the scree of schoolrooms,
the shale of a neighbour’s wall.
This was the market
where I stole apples.

This was the street
where I kissed a girl,
her laugh a sudden flare.
Now, only the static of the wind.

They said I was a saviour,
a sword for a righteous cause.
They gave me a title to eclipse the boy.

But here, in the midst of a rubble,
my uniform feels like a shroud.

I cup my hands to
drink from the pump,
its iron throat rusted shut.

A mirror in the dust
shows a stranger’s face,
hollowed out by the very fire
I was taught to spit.

Is this the victory for them?

This silence, so heavy
that sinks into it’s own grave?

This relief that tastes of ash?
The war is over,
they will proclaim
on screens a world away.

But my war is just beginning,
a guerilla campaign
in the theatre of memory.

Every shattered window
is a missing eye, staring back.

I have come home
to find I am my own ghost,
and except the ruins,
I don’t belong anywhere.