Asterisk

Syrian refugee girl. She has since been evacuated.
Photo Courtesy: UNICEF

Assad,

Take a look at me now

You think you can top that?

Gon' take more demonstrators out?

Send your fighter jets down

I am the Exhibit X

You can't just hit the Delete key

I'm not an asterisk

On your war inventory

You can hate on me

But you can't erase this,

King of the rubble

You went thru all the trouble

Yet I stick out like a stubble

Take out the wool

From your eye

And see the pool

Of blood stretch like the Nile

Who do you persist

In your state of denial

When children are deceased?

You fund a war

To stay in power

Waste a nation

Cowering in your high-tower

Resorted to bloodshed

To further your cause

The people you swore to protect

You sacrifice for political affiliation

Shudda resigned

If you really cared

About the sanctity of life

Your butt's squared

Cause politics is not do or die

You shudda walked away

Even you knew the stakes

You shudda left the state whole

And prevented the death toll

It belongs to the people

And ain't nobody dying but us

You made us rubble

Acquainted us with torture

You ignored the risks

And made kids mere asterisks.

Akpan