"The World I Used To Know" Written By Milena Grubor

I ache for springs where silence bloomed,

Where cherry air the heart perfumed.

When dawn arrived without a price,

And peace was not a traded vice.

When children knew the touch of land,

Not glowing lies at commerce’s hand.

Before their eyes were taught to kneel

To flashing gods that do not feel.

No plague of light, no humming screen,

No staged delight, no borrowed sheen.

But laughter born of dirt and sun,

Not numbers showing who had won.

I mourn the days when “thank you” stayed,

Not drowned beneath the debts we made.

When kindness lived without a fee,

And grace was given openly.

When family rites were roots held fast,

Not trends to mock, discard, outlast.

When names were more than passing sound,

And memory was sacred ground.

Now women stand like wares in rows,

Appraised by want that comes and goes,

Not sought for lives to build and bind,

But sampled, shelved, then left behind.

Men speak of warmth, of nights, of need,

Yet flee the ring, the vow, the seed.

For flesh is sweet when none must stay,

And love demands a dearer pay.

The altar bowed to appetite,

Commitment named too grave, too tight.

A marriage asks the soul be sworn,

The market takes, then greets the morn.

I wish I’d breathed that older air,

Before all meaning thinned to spare.

Before the sacred learned to sell,

What tongues were never meant to tell.

Now even love is tried and bought,

Returned when flaw exceeds the thought,

And loyalty has learned to flee,

When worth drops in economy.

We drown in sums we never chose,

In restless lives that never close.

No home can rise, no future bind,

Where debt outruns the heart and mind.

Friends fade when usefulness is gone,

Like echoes thinning into dawn.

For nothing stays that cannot pay,

In this exhausted age of trade.

I saw it early, far too soon,

Yet played the fool, delayed the ruin.

I stitched the blame into my skin

And called it fault for looking in.

I paid in silence, paid in years,

In doubled costs of quiet tears.

In sickness sworn with no reply,

I stood alone beneath the sky.

No husband’s vow to guard the night,

No child’s small arms to anchor light.

No hearth where shared forgiveness bends,

No house where love outlives its ends.

I had no gold, no flesh to lend,

No pleasing mask I could defend.

I was not built for markets cold,

Nor taught to bleed to be controlled.

Yet still I hope, against all proof,

That something sacred stays aloof.

That hearts may yet see worth unseen,

Not just in coin, nor use, nor sheen.

That value lives beyond the trade,

Beyond the meals of hunger made,

Not what you serve, nor what you give,

But what you guard and dare to live.