Poetry, Three Things Challenge

In Harmony’s Embrace

M.A.D. Works
Three Things Challenge #MM27

NEUTRAL
NAVIGATE
NUANCE

Three Things Challenge #MM27 | pensitivity101

In a world so bright and fair,
We find a path, our dreams to share.
With hearts that aim to keep it neutral,
We navigate life, so rich and factual.

Each moment holds a gentle nuance,
In every glance, a silent dance.
We walk together, hand in hand,
Finding peace in this vast land.

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Published by M.A.D. Works

8 thoughts on “In Harmony’s Embrace”

  2. Nowhere to Be Neutral
    Written by

    25summerz
    in

    #threethingschallenge, 3TC, creative writing, Israel, Palestine

    #TTC #3TC
    The sky was red again.
    Not the poetic kind. Not sunset.
    Red like warning. Red like fire on skin. Red like blood that never dries.

    Yousef lay flat against the remnants of his grandmother’s rooftop, pieces of rebar and concrete pressing into his ribs. The house had been hit four days ago. Now it was just a skeleton of a memory, still warm in places, still humming with echoes of screaming.

    Underneath the rubble were her cooking pots, a Koran singed at the edges, and the bones of a cat that had once curled in the windowsill like it belonged to God.

    There were drones overhead again—buzzing, blinking, blind to nuance.

    Every sound made his heart jolt sideways. Every silence felt like a trap.

    Beside him, Mariam chewed on her lip until it bled. She was twelve. Eyes already hollowed out like she’d lived a hundred lifetimes and buried them all in one week. The last thing she’d said was three days ago, when she asked if her mother’s body could still feel the rain.

    Yousef didn’t have an answer. He was twenty-six and already tired like an old man.

    Across the city, there were people watching their homes collapse in 4K resolution, streaming war like it was content. Tweets like prayers. Comments like eulogies. People saying, “Let’s remain neutral until the facts are clear.”

    Neutral?

    Yousef wanted to scream.
    What nuance do you need when a child’s leg is found in a tree?

    A missile doesn’t ask for context. A sniper doesn’t care about intent. Neutrality is a luxury built from distance. And here—here, where the walls bleed and the air smells like iron—there is no distance. There is only now. Only this.

    Mariam tugged at his sleeve. Wordless.
    She pointed to a crushed phone, half-buried in ash.

    Yousef dug it out and brushed it clean with trembling hands. The screen lit up. One percent battery. No signal. A photo: Mariam, her mother, and her older brother at the beach two summers ago. Smiles so big they looked fake now. A snapshot from a forgotten universe.

    “She was teaching me to swim,” Mariam whispered. First words in days. “I was scared of the waves.”

    “You’re brave,” Yousef said, his voice cracking. “You were never scared.”

    She shook her head. “I was. But she told me it’s okay to be scared if you keep moving.”

    He looked at her—really looked.
    Ash smeared on her cheeks.
    A scrape across her temple.
    A child clinging to a truth more real than any ceasefire or border line.

    Maybe that’s all survival was.
    Not hope. Not faith.
    Just moving through fear without the privilege of stopping.

    Somewhere in the distance, another building collapsed. The sky coughed up more fire.

    And still, they didn’t move.

    Not yet.
    Not because they were giving up.
    But because their bodies needed one more moment to remember what rest felt like.

    Then, Mariam stood.
    Bare feet on broken glass.
    Voice soft but steady: “Let’s go.”

    And Yousef followed, because in a world that offers no peace, no fairness, no nuance—sometimes, the only way to resist is to keep walking.

    Neutrality was dead here.
    But the human spirit—
    That was still on fire.

    #threethingschallenge 3TC

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