Anthology of Eleos

We birth daughters into blood and fire,
into rooms where pain is expected,
where their cries are swallowed
by the ever-turning wheel.
We birth sons into war,
handing them to hands that will shape them into steel,
teaching them to fight, to kill, to die
for the greed of men who do not know their names.

And we
we are told this is righteous!
That this is how it has always been.
That a woman is a mother before she is herself,
that a man is a soldier before he is a child.

-waverly