We buy peace with loaded chambers

and name it a truce.

After levelling the muzzles at the place

where olive branches once grew.

When each treaty is signed

with the blood of the loser.

The wound beneath him keeps breathing,

biding his time against the victor.

A family of a fallen soldier lingers,

clinging to unused shoes and a uniform.

The town keeps their echoes,

in an abandoned school, a burnt doll in the playpen.

When the hot barrel speaks,

the quiet of the dead answers.

Will peace ever come to a place

stitched with old wounds?

Searching for peace,

unsure how it looks.

Pausing after a battle,

with the mind eying the next?

We speak of peace

only when victory wears our name.

Never listening to the quiet within us,

gagged and bound to a chain.

*

Jay Jagdev | 21st May 2026