From the mouth of a building
that forgot its own shape,
they pull out papers-
creased lungs of color,
breathing ash.
A house drawn in seemingly
straight lines refuses to
learn collapse.
A sun- not so round,
not so certain,
keeps smiling at a sky that
no longer exists.
Stick figures hold hands
across a page in solidarity
like there's still a future
that no blast could edit.
A blue crayon river
still remembers how to flow,
though the street outside
has turned to dust.
Fingerprints of red and yellow-
small, stubborn signatures
outlive the walls that tried to
keep them safe.
And in one corner, a bird
mid-flight, wings open-
has nowhere left to arrive.
The resuers stack the
drawings like evidence against
the idea of war. Proof that
color survived impact.
Proof that someone,
before the noise,
before the blast believed in
windows, in doors,
and in tomorrows.
Proof that, in the quiet
after sirens-
whatever hope that was left
got laced to crayons and
took an iroclad refuge
in papers that no
power could ransack.