By Zainab Iftikhar

Oh, dear heart of gold, bleed a shade of crimson please.

For calloused people know not that this stunned heart is in fact alive; for all they know is to stab it in anticipation that it will bleed only shades of glitter and gold.

Kindness in noble, that’s true, but they think it is nothing but your gullible virtue.

Sometimes the mind feels so heavy with thoughts that must not conquer.

Why must the weakest soldiers get the torments they cannot incur?

With every morning light, there is a wait for a new beginning; but sometimes there’s not much hope left as much as there is for some barren longing.

How many scars do you have soldier?

I have heard your stifled cries in my dreams, like the scared cat that’s purring on the streets.

Why do you choose this pain when peace is so easy to attain? Is it because you believe that choosing pain will make it all painless someday?

How hard it is to live in a world where judgement is plenty, but appreciation nil.

Where be yourself is so easily said, but the meaning behind it is seldom meant.

Where materialistic livelihoods are keenly sough, whilst the underprivileged are left distraught.

Where taking a bullet to the chest is your duty, and any collateral damage becomes your liability.

Alas, the battles will wage on. Some in raging ocean waters that will try to drown you out; icy cold winters that will cover you in an avalanche of snow; sweltering summers sucking the light from within.

Feed not the soul with sorrow; it will pompously build castles and fortresses in the sky only to tear them down to rubbles again. You don’t want to end up having to pick up these pieces all your life, lonely and one, with a heart so hollow that it cares for none.

I know, little soldier, that you wish to transmit an oasis one day where the reward will finally feel like spring again; with bumblebees and scented flowers and green meadows that engulf a retiring sun as it ignites the dusky sky in hues of purple, orange, and red.

Well, here’s a secret to remember then; even after all the annihilation, you will still find it in you to care for others, holding on to a sliver of silver lining. So, waste no time trying to bleed that crimson, for your kind heart will never know a color other than golden.