From the crumbling, bullet-ridden houses,
Full of countless childhood pictures,
They fled.
From the smoldering cities,
Heavy with the smoke of countless fires,
They fled.
From the dust of countless broken buildings,
They fled.
Into the dust of the desert,
With countless broken people,
They fled.
Their countless dead,
And all their possessions,
Left behind.
In the fire.
In the dust.
Across the world, across the sea,
They fled,
For countless weeks,
They waited and hoped and prayed,
Their struggles, countless.
The horrors they’d witnessed, countless.
And then…
When they finally got there,
They were told,
That no one would help them.
That they were not wanted.
That they, the countless,
Did not count.