I remember when I was a window

I remember when I was a window.

The Glass Bank curves like a blade with a grand staircase for a hilt. Follow the marble bannister and it will lead to me - a window. I am set higher than the minarets standing like wickless candles along the riverbanks. Every night, their spent oil burns a crimson dusk over the city of Mostar.

I remember when I was a window. 

I am the first to be destroyed. All the rest of my brothers would soon be broken and left in disarray. The bank became an embattled fortress that divided us. My sill and trim erodes from sniper abrasion. One by one, their targets fall like defoliated leaves; carried away in ruby-stained stretchers. Everyone knows my sight as the "sniper alley”. If you can see the tower, I can see you.

I remember when I was a window.

The tides of war changed, and I am no longer useful. If anything, I am a vulnerability. Brick and mortar tightly stitch my wounds, until I am blind. Had I known, I would have pleaded for death. But I wish to see the sky one more time. Before the last brick, the wickless minarets lit in sudden combustion - the fragrance of death. Ash and smoke shrouded over Mostar, until everything was black. I remain in darkness, but the cacophony of war reminds me that this horror is embedded in my scars forever.

I remember when I was a window.

I live out my nightmare in a concrete graveyard. I feel no warmth from the sun that shines through this hollow corpse. But occasionally I hear voices. Foreign ones with cautious footsteps. I listen to their echoes throughout the chambers of the old bank. The staircase has no bannister to brace anymore, but they steady something on empty window sills. No sound of bullets. Shutter clicks, only cameras. When my fragmented glass cracks under their feet, there is a pause. Silence. I know they can see me, and what I have become.

Please remember me as a window.