War’s Age of Anxiety

Behind the face of smiles

There are echoes of screams

Tormenting the dreams

Where roads of the vanquished

Seem endless in their winding snarls of hate

I’m fine

You say

But beneath the face of smiles

Lurks the often-silent screams of despair

Awaiting the next missile destined to engorge

 The fake smile with more blood of fear

Where happiness passes like water

Through your hands

Trickling into another bunker-buster crater of hell

Oh, how fragile the lie

Millions of people being eaten away with fear

Starvation of the other kind

Where human dignity is ripped away

By shrapnel and flying rock

With no amount of food

Staving off starvation of the heart

For like a rollercoaster hill

One’s clicking up the incline of happiness

Often never finds the peak

The top

The ability

For some

Even the many

To smile honestly