I dance through air with a deadly grace.

Yet mourn the lives I cannot replace.

Once a vessel of power, now burdened with guilt,

I pierced through dreams, where innocence wilt.

A mother’s love fades into the night,

Leaving children alone, lost in their light.

A father’s laugh, now echoes in vain,

His children weep, their hearts filled with pain.

I have tasted the chaos, the cries in the dark,

Each life I extinguish leaves a haunting mark.

In the silence that follows, I hear their despair,

The love that was shattered, the hearts laid bare.

I roll through the streets where justice once roamed,

Now fear grips the souls of those left at home.

With each echoing shot, a story untold,

Of futures forsaken, of warmth turned cold.

Each life I touch, a story ends,

Innocence lost, where justice bends.

For every life taken, a part of me dies,

In the wake of my passage, only silence replies.

Christine Marie Lim Magpile

Christine Marie Lim Magpile is a teacher, book editor-author, and translator. She has a BS Education–History (cum laude) from the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, and is currently studying MA in 𝘈𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘰 from the University of the Philippines in Diliman. She is a fellow of the Iligan National Writers Workshop (2024), De la Salle University Young Screenwriters Workshop (2023), La Salle Kritika National Workshop on Art and Cultural Criticism (2019), 6th Angono Writers’ Summer Workshop (2018), the UST National Writers’ Workshop (2008), and the 𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘯, 𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘩𝘦𝘯, 𝘙𝘦𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘬𝘢, 𝘢𝘵 𝘈𝘯𝘺𝘰 (LIRA, 2007 and 2023).