Gambling with Life

by Anissa Sboui

Like savage rats

Throbbing to exist

Crawling to survive in a

Chaotic city…

On the eve of the revolution

Something broke out

The smell of death

Void prevails

Fleeting innocence

At a distant boarding school

In the nick of time

Femtochemistry

Darkness enters

Light swiftly departs

The monotonous meal ends

Some still starving

Who cares?

Daydreaming butterflies

Sleeping, tired they are

Would tomorrow be better?

Warmth and care?

Sourourahma owe

Their loss of life…

Inseparable

Never know

Lying down

Dying there’d please them

What a cruel world!

Doom marries loss

Fire shows up

It does cross

No boundaries,

Encountering no defense.

Set on fire

Plunging in mire,

Destiny

Death satire.

Wait here to save

Preserve the boss

He won’t dismiss

Won’t step down.

To hell, traumatized childhood,

Burn to keep his ilk alive

Await nothing

Aspire nothing

As nothing loves nothing

The Waste Land:

You know nothing?

Do you see nothing?

Do you remember nothing?

* * * * *

Note: Sourourrahma: Sourour and Rahma are 2 schoolgirls, victims of burns during a fire in their boarding school in the region of Kasserine, Tunisia on the 6th of February  2018.

Anissa Sboui is a Tunisian poet, University teacher and a PhD research scholar.