a child should never be made to fight a war by Ray Hoo (20, Singapore)

Trigger warning: domestic violence, divorce

i. the messenger
you were the dove
holding mountains together in the dead of winter
with your pure feathers and a crown of thorns 

---

your olive branch
was a sword that sliced your talons open and watered their lands with your blood
you wore the treaty of peace on your little chest but
you were the price
and your cries the
herald for a new sun
but still they killed you because fear was the heart of their love.
ii. the soldier
you put the trigger to your own head you stuck the knives in your own chest because the only way
to win this cold war
was to start another
you were a one-man army fighting for both kingdoms
with a rusty crown on your head the white of your tunic stained red from the years of stolen peace
you thought you’d never get to see the rolling plains in the beyond
the one they’d told you you’d rule once you were done playing the princess in an impenetrable fortress
when all along you were the knight drowning in the rivers of what once was.
iii. the sacrificial lamb
you laid your gentle head down in their laps and prayed to a
deity of two heads
wishing for a union of
their hearts and your end
she had too many tongues
he held her heart in lieu of his they held hands for the last time and their vows at the altar became your commandments
they slit your throat on the marble the push and pull of red waves sealing the white stone
with the loving embrace of
an eternal uninnocence
in sickness and in health you lay down my innocence and you weep.
iv. the savior
they bowed to you before they
lay you beneath a tree of gold where the leaves fell skywards and the water never touched your feet and all you could do was watch
you always did paint your skin gold to hide the fact that it was as
white as an untold wound
you bearer of horrible secrets
and the vessel of wretched release
it was under the tree of life that you first tasted it--
love is the cruelest violence and peace is something to be clenched between fangs
you were no longer a child
just the unbreakable rope taut on a bridge that was waiting to fall.
v. the god
I am no creature of ordinary wants my heart tempered in hot blood and my body bound in tears
I crave no lightness and
I govern this eternal winter
I need no food for the body
nor warmth for the soul
for I am made of pure, ungiving fire and the flames of my destruction
feed the appetite of my pain
I hold extraordinary violence in my heart
my eyes planets of aching light
tributes to the ones who made me who I am today with their false temples and peace offerings and dreams that were not their own
I am eternal and unforgiving
and I set fire to the faces in
my relentless memory
for my only home is on fire
and I am a crumbling utopia of coal
I am a dying god because they feed the dead with blood at all my ruined altars. 
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Ray Hoo is a 20-year-old creator from Singapore whose works are infused with both intellectual and emotional inspiration. They are not afraid to touch on the controversial and morbid, diving deep into grief, love, pride, sin, death—the list goes on. You may find more of their work at @thericedemon on Instagram.