the world is taught in verses.
this against that,
the zero-sum of empires
where blood must fill the sum.
a mathematics made of loss,
a grammar built on cross.

but deep below the screaming rows
of winners, losers, friends and foes,
there runs a quieter, older word.
a truth that goes unheard.

the wound is real.
the split is not illusion.
colonial thought,
its brutal, sharp intrusion,
cut earth and soul
in two.

but healing does not come
by making one side win.
it comes when both sides see
the sacredness they’re standing in.

so let the verse break open.
not to choose between the cries,
but to hold them both together
until a new world harmonizes.

not apple tree versus olive tree,
but apple and olive tree.
not fighting to be sole,
but finding they are whole
only when the other, too, is free.

this is the verse that stops the bleeding.
the verse that ends all verses.
the one that starts with mending,
not with battle-cries.

it doesn’t seek a winner,
it seeks a wider breath,
where no one must be poor
for someone else to wealth.

so if you seek a poem
to staunch this ancient pain,
look,
it is not written yet.
we write it now.
not with ink,
but with the choice to break the chain.