Build A Kingdom Poem by Hannah Smith

We sweep brushstrokes in ink.
We scribble to erase.
The deafening silence.
Cemented between decrees.

We write of crying children,
And broken promises,
Thinly veiled,
Of fathers that never come home,
Of the absolute being flushed down.
Although in the sewers,
It doesn’t matter.

But the strongest words,
Aren’t carried by our mouths.
But carried by the week,
In grim alleys,
Where the walls are as,
Cold as a gallery.
These words aren’t shouted,
But whispered,
In cheap cigarette voices.

They travel, they float,
From the lowered terraces,
To the deaf ears of the strong,
And land on the paper by the powerful.

Soon,
Penless,
Paperless.
Our mistakes,
Carved up and let to dry.

Thrown out the window,
To fly on kite stings,
Covered in glass.

Then hush.

These crumpled disasters,
Lie on the pavement.
But those words,
Can build a kingdom.