Shut up and Listen

Shut up and listen,  

they said, their voices heavy like iron chains,  

clinking with the weight of unspoken orders,  

of missiles, their cold metal bodies  

climbing towards the stars,  

ready to tear the sky open—  

a wound that won’t heal,  

the fragile silence we once called peace  

shattered like glass in a hurricane.  

Shut up and listen.  

The clock is ticking, each second  

falling like blood from a forgotten wound,  

the hands spinning like an army of ghosts,  

drumming their nails against the ticking bones  

of a world collapsing under its own rage.  

Look at the hands of the world—  

knuckles white,  

clutching the red button like a secret,  

their skin stretched thin with power,  

eyes glazed over,  

tired of keeping the devil inside.  

Shut up and listen.  

You don’t get to speak when the sky  

is swallowing cities whole,  

when the sun bleeds fire over rubble,  

and the earth shakes beneath the weight  

of someone else’s pride,  

cracking open like the shell of a rotten egg,  

pestilence spilling across the horizon.  

You don’t get to speak when the future  

is counted in hours—  

fleeting as smoke,  

each one slipping away from us  

like sand we can’t hold,  

grains too small, too sharp,  

digging into our palms  

as we beg for time to stop,  

but it never listens.  

Shut up and listen.  

There’s nothing left to say.  

The news feeds blare their warnings—  

sirens screaming in pixelated voices,  

but we’ve already heard them too many times,  

like the rumble of thunder we ignore  

until the storm breaks over us,  

a song we pretend to forget  

until it’s on repeat,  

every chorus a countdown  

we can’t stop,  

each note heavier than the last.  

Avoid nuclear war, they beg,  

but no one tells you how—  

not in words,  

not in breath.  

No one tells you  

how to silence the screaming  

inside your chest,  

how to make it stop,  

how to close your eyes  

and find a way back to peace.  

Shut up and listen,  

and maybe—just maybe—  

we can learn  

how to breathe again.