No Paper Planes

There are no Paper Planes here, just real ones, no childhood games, just surreal ones.

No swimming pools just open drains, buzzing drones, relentless pain,
No cluster of laughter, just cluster bombs, no happy ever after, just vaporised….gone.

No Hoola Hoops, Hopscotch or Marbles, no homemade Basbousa or sugared dough balls,
No cool running water, just red waterfalls, no uncracked windows or safe solid walls.

There are no Paper Planes here, just real ones, no childhood games, just surreal ones.
There are no Paper Planes here, just real ones, no Paper Planes.

There are no schools in my streets, just hard, hard lessons, no assembly seats, just pulverised possessions.
No pristine sheets of whitened paper, just blood-smeared glass and cordite vapour.
No little desks neatly set out in rows, just splintered remains, like petal-less roses.
Where the teacher who taught us now decomposes, by the door to my classroom that no longer closes…

There are no Paper Planes here, just real ones, no childhood games, just surreal ones.
There are no Paper Planes here, just real ones, no Paper Planes.

No cogs tick ticking, to drown out click clicking, of each rifle recoiling and missiles hit hitting, each gunship rip ripping the guts from existence as I stumble trip tripping,

There are no Paper Planes here, just real ones, no childhood games, just surreal ones.
There are no Paper Planes here, just real ones, no childhood games, just surreal ones.
There are no Paper Planes here, just real ones, no Paper Planes.