Children of unfinished war

This poem is a complete story of a life.

Children of unfinished war

Children of unfinished war

The stars still shine above the village

even when the roofs below are burning.

Thunder still brings rain to the fields,

yet floods the hands already drowning.

That is the irony of life—

the same sky that gives hope

also teaches how quickly hope collapses.

Trust is the strangest currency.

Poor men give it freely,

rich men purchase it in silence.

Love speaks of forever,

but forever demands rent every day—

patience, money, understanding, timing,

soft words after hard days,

and two tired souls choosing each other

when survival itself is exhausting.

My father never knew

the warmth of a father’s hands.

My mother grew up

without the softness of a mother’s love.

Two broken histories

stood beside each other like wounded soldiers,

still choosing to fight life together.

They were not perfect people,

just people carrying storms

with no umbrella at all.

My mother fought for education

without knowing the map to success.

My father carried debt on his back

until age bent his bones

and finally the burden was paid.

If they had walked separate roads,

perhaps we would never have tasted

even the smallest piece of happiness.

Now I understand—

children inherit more than names.

We inherit unfinished wars,

silent fears,

empty cupboards of wisdom,

and houses where love existed

but did not know how to speak.

I loved deeply,

yet my hands did not know

how to hold a relationship together.

I had patience, yes.

Resilience, yes.

But love needs more than endurance.

A tree cannot survive

on roots alone

when sunlight and water are missing.

So I stayed for years,

learning thousands of lessons

from a heart that both healed and destroyed me.

You were not a saint,

but you were gentler

than most people this world creates.

I keep the beautiful memories

to honor you,

and the painful ones

to numb the fire inside my chest.

That too is irony—

we preserve what hurts us

just to survive what we lost.

I wanted love.

Life asked for stability.

I wanted peace.

Life demanded negotiation.

I wanted dreams.

Life handed me unpaid bills,

failed businesses,

empty pockets,

and people losing trust

right when I prepared everything.

Every time I touched the gate of success,

the gate moved farther away.

Money, I learned, is only the fruit.

The real struggle is finding soil

that does not kill the seed.

Sometimes I feel

surviving is merely

death wearing slower clothes.

One side of the same coin—

on one face, breathing;

on the other, slowly disappearing.

Yet I still wake up.

Even when war enters life.

Even when savings dry out

like rivers in summer.

Even when I fight alone

holding broken tools

against impossible walls.

I still believe

there is light somewhere ahead of me,

though an invisible wall

keeps my hands from reaching it.

Maybe this is the curse

of people born from chaotic generations:

we dream like kings

while building with shattered bricks.

We want peaceful homes

without ever seeing one.

We try to become good men

using instructions written by suffering.

Still, I want to change the bloodline.

I want my future children

to inherit softer mornings,

a quieter home,

less fear at the dinner table.

I want them to learn love

without first learning survival.

But God,

sometimes trying is all I have left.

Not victory.

Not answers.

Just trying.

The world gives some people

warm homes and open roads.

Others receive storms

and are asked to become sailors overnight.

Yet even now,

with tired hands and a fractured heart,

I still choose to grow.

I still chase the future

though the ingredients are missing.

I still walk toward the light

even when it refuses to come closer.

Because maybe faith

is not believing life is fair.

Maybe faith is continuing anyway.

-Haobam Pravinsen