viva la revolución

the revolution was quelled.

protestors and picketers were dispersed by smoke bombs and water cannons not an hour ago. now the street is littered with the broken glass of Molotov cocktails, charred remains of cars overturned in the chaos and the broken dreams embodied in the wood, cardboard and plastic of ruined picket signs and paper banners. it started peacefully, as they all did, but the combination of sheer heat, short fuses and angry men already on the brink of despair had this confrontation written in the books the moment the first voice was blared over megaphones.

but still he knelt there. in the centre of a quiet hope. he had not slept, nor shaved nor eaten. and his face was riddled with blood and spit. the sign he had so vehemently carried over his head these past 5 days now lay precariously over his drooping shoulder, his tattered clothes and broken soul. his jaw was slack and he stared at the ground, hands between his knees, too tired to stand. his hands were dirty and rough and his nails had been chipped, his thick fingers reduced to an exhausted curl, caked in dirt and gun smoke.

a bead of sweat fell from his nose as he breathed in deep, his sunken cheeks dark under the mid-day sun.

"why don't you go home?" i heard myself ask him.

and it was then i saw it in his eyes:


"because i have nothing else."


and so i watched him kneel there, even as the last truck pulled away bursting with his brothers in arms locked inside, he moved to grip his picket with calloused fingers. he screamed but no sound came out. his muscles ripped but no strength came forth. his veins burst but no one could see.

such pain he endured.

and yet, it seemed that fate was beyond him, and she laughed as every step he took, brought him further and further away from his goal.