Hannah Cherry Poet Free verse

Almost Free

The cities...
Well, they burn.
People still in their homes.
Some even in hospitals.
Not even sparing schools.
Whole societies crippled.
Families torn apart.
Famine reaching near all.
Well, all that are left.
Pain and sorrow soak the air.
A mist tinging everything a shade of hollow gray.
Shadows so dark, you might get lost.
Well, there isn't much left to get lost in.
Nothing really.
Nothing but rubble.
Then, almost as if to spite it all, light chatter starts.
One filled with something we thought was lost.
Small laughs, still tears but they try.
A small moment here and there between the weeping as they pull their dead from the broken stones and fallen beams.
A murmur through the crowds sharing scraps of food.
A gentle whisper gaining, layer after layer, another whisper added.
Growing till all that is felt is hope it will end.
Hope that the pain will slow and eb.
That small moment, turned it all.
That child trying to get their little sibling to laugh.
It's the first time in a week, parents are gone.
But they got to eat, again, the first time in a week. 
They heard others were trying to help.
It's not as bad as it could be...right?
Could be that everyone wished for them to suffer.
It could be every single being wishing for their destruction.
But they heard it. 
A promise.
Like not so long ago.
Promises over an old broken radio.
Pristine voices, unfeeling, unknowing of the quibbling.
Then someone broke through all that, they gave the young. 
The old, something we all were missing.
Hope.
That someday, through all the pain and retched torment, we will all be free.
Free, fed, housed, clothed, and cared for.
So they sit and they hope that this horrible mess with ease.
While the grown watch, lost in this small moment of hope.
Even if they remember all the times before.
They can't bring themselves to break the last thing the young ones have.
No matter how they wish to warn.
So they silently, looking to each other, passing items, helping and agreeing.
We will end it for them.
We must.

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Hannah Cherry February 20, 2026 at 10:55 AM To give some context. This was written right after a bombing in Gaza. Thinking of what happens in the aftermath. Because there is never 'no one' left after a bombing or any skirmish. There are always a few and it will always hurt. But I'd like to think that maybe some still had hope and that they could pass it on to each other. Let the hope the pain will end spurn us to improve the conditions for all. Thanks for adding to the anthology.