by Tim Murphy

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For just a moment,
listen to the voice
that wants to call it
a war, that sees war as
something winnable,
even innocent, righteous,
no matter the innocence
left mangled in its wake.

We call it war but feed
the country starving
an entire population,
bombing homes and
people off the map
it drew itself onto,
the map that erased all
who were there before.

We call it war but ignore
decades of apartheid,
bottomless violence,
confuse bombing
hospitals, schools
and food lines with
people resisting
their own extinction.

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© Tim Murphy

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Tim Murphy (he/him) is a disabled, bisexual poet from the Pacific Northwest. His writing explores chronic illness, social and disability justice, and our complex, tenuous relationship with the more-than-human world. Tim’s poetry appears in over a dozen literary journals, including, Louisiana Literature, Wordgathering,  Remington Review, Writers Resist, and in the books, The Long COVID Reader (2023) and Songs of Revolution (2024).

Find out more on Twitter or Instagram @brokenwingpoet.

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