What Choice do I have? | Teen Ink

What Choice do I have?

April 19, 2024
By Anonymous

A Russian soldier stops the worship.

Tells the women and children to go downstairs.


They were very brutal–targeted, put to death.

Don't fit the world he wants to build?

Under extreme pressure, forced to flee.

We have our own country? 


Our own culture have been deemed undesirable.

Gather in secret, in private.


Go downstairs, we were accused.

Armed people with masks, military uniform.

“If you will not stop, you're going to see the blood.”


No one knows what will happen next.

Sing as they wait their turn, frequently torture. 


Forced to say,

“We have to just relax and everything's OK.” ;(


Spared death and destruction. 


I see like chaos in the whole city.

You have to stop this. 


A Russian soldier stops worship.


The author's comments:

I wrote this piece with lines from “Ukrainian Christian Groups Face Violent Crackdown From Russian Forces” by Simon Ostrovsky, Yegor Troyanovsky, and Shahida Tulaganova, a Pulitzer Center Reporting Project.


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