The waters rise where mountains break the sky, A sudden surge beneath the border stone; A hundred carried where the cold peaks lie, And hundreds missing in the mud, alone. No treaty stays the river’s heavy hand, No ledger balances the washed-out land. Across the sea, the narrow waters close, Six months of thunder under desert heat; The ink of sanctions thickens as it flows, While tankers wait where war and barter meet. A strait choked shut, an empire counting cost, And quiet shores where peace is slowly lost. Northward, the border stiffens into pride, Where kindred neighbors tally strike for strike; A tax for each export across the divide, A growing wall where few remember like. The ledgers fill with measure-for-measure spite, While common commerce shutters in the night. And far away, behind the glowing pane, A kingdom built of captive minds and eyes Lays seventeen billion down to cleanse the stain Of stolen hours and algorithmic ties— A hollow ransom for the childhoods bent Toward blue-lit silence and the soul's consent. The wire hums on; the modern tide rolls wide, Of debts and drownings, empires, greed, and grief— We mend the screens that hold us on the inside, And turn the page, and seek a brief relief.
