Breakfast in Baghdad

Bearded moss nestling blood bursting tics steered the wind to where bombs waft gently toward kitchen tables and lemonade stands.
"End this war!" she screamed.
...limbs extended, fingers clinching door frame.
Warm tears found cold mausoleum in burning sand and pits of rage and corpses of familiar ones.
There were only two moments that day.
The others fled faster than remembrance...
And she stood in their crux,
Somewhere between pulchritude and death,
Labored breaths and a foul taste in her mouth.
The sky was poised and porous
Pink like baby brow post meltdown.
“Gasp”
“Gasp”
“Sigh”
“Cough”
“Scream”
Repeat.
She reminds herself to breathe...attempts to forget.
Tries to remember his laugh and smile and if the Kahi she was making was ready yet...
Tries to drown out this image, this now...
This? No.
Hopes never re-live...
This moment...
Prays that she will soon be awakening to sweaty sheets and the gratitude of a nightmare’s illusion...
The sky was too vivid, the smell too pungent...
She knew better.
His body was stiff and his blood was syrupy
It gripped her skin as if in a desperate panic...an attempt to adhere to life’s spark, her warmth.
There was nothing.
There...was everything.
He was everything.
There was nothing...