The Best We Could Do

 Inspired by the novel “The Best We Could Do” by Thi Bui

We stand alone,

Our hearts cold. 

Brought together

To be torn apart.

Absent of normalcy

Our family built on the blood

Of the lives around us

Starving and poor

Under the weight of communism.

There is no freedom

Where there is no hope

No chance to escape

What is already within. 

War is a poison,

That seeps into the heart

We take it with us 

To new lands

Where war is not gone

Only pretending to be finished

But this poison

Lives inside

Quietly you hear it

But loudly it acts

As an instinct of survival

To run for safety

As if the problem 

Could be left behind.

But no,

It was carried with us

And you born from it

You will carry its weight

Until you choose to let go

Because we cannot

We carried you to new land

But carried the past with it

And now we are broken apart

But speak as one

For you, our children

We did the best we could do.