Smoke and fire

Even as the world was already hurting,

You deployed your smoke and fire

To fulfill your desire

Power and fame

Is that your end game?

Wiping out generations with your shooting

Their stories their homes

Instead of uplifting you’re uprooting 

What will you gain

    From all their blood tears and pain

Won’t the emptiness in you

    still remain?

Fight your madness

Your fears

Don’t give in to your darkness

Isn’t the real war you need to win

    the one raging within? 

How can you take

What you break

How can you unite

With your dynamite

How can you proclaim

Spirits who roam free

Not giving in to your tyranny

Even if you conquer their buildings their cities

Their hearts will never give you any real victories

Don’t you see

What you seek is 

only that which will eventually flee

Your grave will never contain 

the riches the power the fame 

the conquered lands 

or the promise of tomorrows

But it shall be burdened

   by their pain 

their tears 

   and their sorrows 

Don’t you see

In trying to crush 

   their spark their light

You’re revealing not 

    your mighty might

  but rather your own 

    fractured inner plight