By Eviella Sefu

I used to run through fields of green,
where the river sang and the earth was clean.
Mama’s hands were soft and strong,
Papa’s voice a steady song.
Now the trees shake with falling shells,
the river chokes on war’s dark spells.
Smoke rises where my home once stood,
and fear walks with us through the woods.
They say the men come from beyond the hills,
that they take what they want, they break, they kill.
I do not know the flags they fly,
only the sorrow in Mama’s eyes.
They speak of borders, maps, and claims,
of hidden hands, of shifting names.

But I only see the empty chair,
where my brother should be sitting there.
I hold my sister close at night,
as gunfire carves the sky with light.
She asks me when the war will end—
I do not know, I just pretend.
I dream of mornings without fear,
of laughter pure, of skies made clear.
Of days when home is home again,
and war is just a tale of back then.
But for now, the earth still weeps,
the graves grow full, the silence deep.
And I am just a child who prays
for peace to come—to stay, to stay.