Democracy Dies by R.J. Breathnach

Democracy Dies

for all the journalists of Palestine

There used to be a qualifier

on the end of that phrase.

Something to reassure

that democracide only occurs

in limited circumstances.

That journalistic suffix

must have been five years old,

otherwise

they wouldn’t have blown it off

with a bunker buster bomb.

First they came for the children;

is futurecide a word?

Then they came for the medics,

so the future could not be healed.

Then they came for the journalists,

to try and hide their crimes.

Democracy, posterity, humanity.

Side-by-side in a mass grave

in Gaza.

No limits.

No reassurances.

Regardless of the light levels,

democracy dies.

R.J. Breathnach is an award winning Irish writer, Wexford-born and Meath-based. His work has been published in ROPES Literary Journal, The Wexford Bohemian, and The Honest Ulsterman, among others. His debut poetry chapbook, I Grew Tired of Being a Zombie, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2021