Vitriolage by Airyn R. Lentija

Just as my scarred hands hold these rails
so the tiny drops
of my faith make me live, too.
I, who never asked for this blindness,
The scarring of my face and body that
erased my existence to the real world…
embarassed…
in fear of the stigma and of prejudice
that bubbles from the mouth
of the community I was once belonged to.
I am a mother turned into a baby,
desperately dependent…
I am a teenager who forgets how it was to be a teenager…
I am a lively lady that used to enjoy the company of my peers…
A victim of vitriolage,
I am shunned now…
and relive the vivid memories that lift me
to another level of distress, of such agony,
that my mind almost shut down,
they called…
a psychologist for in-depth intervention,
counselors…
A brilliant mind may give a hand
to restore my damage skin tissue;
surgical treatment…
Yet I will never be free
from the memory of such pain,
such punishment
nor will I be Me again…

Mere Pawns by Mike Berger

Carnage littered  the battlefield.
Bodies of soldiers serving their
country lay twisted and turned
on the bloody ground. A gruesome
battle had raged; neither side would
back down.
At dispute was a strip of land and
a handful of little towns. This barren
strip has little redeaming value. Sun
drenched and parched; this is the
Ogadan.
Somalia invaded feeling it was their
right to expand their empire. Ethiopia
fought back. The two haplessly became
pawns in a ugly game of chess. Two
super powers supplied each side
with arms resulting in a stalemate.
The Somalis finally backed down.


What started out as a regional war;
a dispute over a piece of land became
a grotesque thing  ironically, The Ogadan
is a piece of ground that nobody really
wants. This war became a clash of
two ideologies with both Ethiopia and
Somalia the losers.