Child soldier

by Mihaela Melnic / August 21st, 2022

You grab the guns with hand of milk
with fingers that had never held
a pen within.
You cannot read the fear in your target’s eyes
but surely you’ve been taught
to wash your hands of all that blood.

The trigger should get stuck
when there is a human target,
when there’s a child who pulls it
sometimes so innocently.
The blood should stop to flood
each field and every valley.
The pallid cherry flowers
should not fall on new graves.

Mihaela Melnic lives and writes in Rome, Italy, where her prose and poetry evolve and take different shapes with every new life experience. Her recent work has appeared in various venues including Harbinger Asylum published through Transcendent Zero Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Dissident Voice and Impspired magazine. Her debut poetry collection "Change of Seasons" was released in 2018. Her latest work is the book "Evermore" written in co-authorship and released in September 2021 through 17Numa Press. Visit her website for more of her writings. Read other articles by Mihaela.

This article was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2022 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.