What remains Unprotected

At the edge of the land,

guards stand awake,

holding lines drawn by power,

believing safety lives in fences and flags.

Yet inside those lines,

the country bleeds quietly.

Children are born into verdicts

names judged before faces,

hunger learned before hope.

A birth becomes an accusation:

too poor, too low, too different.

what crime did the child commit

except arriving?

Women walk through days

that fear them back.

From cradles to old age,

violence does not ask permission.

If clothing were the cause,

what did the infant wear?

If silence were consent,

why do screams echo unanswered?

Shame is handed to the wounded,

freedom to the guilty.

Homes turn into traps,

blood betrays blood

and justice looks away.

Above them all,

those in authority feast.

Their wealth is distilled

from sleepless nights and broken backs.

They sip labour like wine,

call it success.

Below, hands that build the world

cannot afford a meal,

throats that fuel cities

crack without water.

Who will answer for this theft?

Why does work kneel

while emptiness wears a crown?

Then come the speeches

leaders naming desire as duty,

revenge as protection.

From distant rooms they start wars,

their pens sharper than swords,

their children untouched by sirens.

Missiles rise, blind and loyal,

erase streets, erase futures.

An atom falls

and time itself is poisoned

soil remembers, bodies remember,

a hundred generations carry the ache.

So ask again:

what are we protecting?

Borders, while people fracture?

Pride, while lives are priced as numbers?

Is safety real

when dignity is denied,

when justice chooses sides,

when the innocent inherit ashes?

This is not fate.

It is a system practiced daily.

And revolt does not begin with fire

it begins with refusal.

To refuse shame.

To refuse silence.

To demand bread before banners,

people before power,

life before ego.

Because a nation is not its walls.

It is its people

and until they are protected,

nothing truly is.