By: Chandra Shekhar Dubey

The day I was born terror had struck
the city covered with charred smoke
foul smell of roasted flesh and forms.
Newly wedded couples shrunk in arms
not in ecstasy of joy but fear of terror.
Bathing old man saw his blood smeared body dripping down his wrinkled face.
Terror spelled darkness and darkness fear.
Locking all inside the ignoble caves of
Ignorance like primitive nomads gnashing
their teeth to tear the innocent lambs of peace into pieces holding humanity
at the mercy of vultures hovering high whose cult is violence.
Next morning news papers, TV buzzed with reports-
Of killings lost into sips of tea in a lawn .
Day filled with numbers , page 3 gossips like scenes of a horror fiction or film.
We wait for another story of terror to discuss in our drawing rooms, workplaces
with ease of a dead conscience.
What makes us so cold and apathetic
to one story till another is told?
We learn to live with terror as we learnt to live with an uncertain virus with cautions.
We forget , lost in our own stories that
what bleeds others may bleed us too.

Why don’t we act rather wait –
For another story to be told ?