Here the bomb
Is ticking.
Here explosions are beating
Like a drum that won’t stop pounding.
Here the guns are firing,
Making someone bleed red crimson.
Here the world is ending,
Almost as if it never began.

Here a man is dying,
On the wet pavement
Next to where his house stood,
And children,
His children are lying next to him,
As soldiers run over top of them,
Bullets reaching out of their hands,
Greeting their enemies and whoever gets in the way.

Like the man, another falls.

But not there.
There a girl is crying,
But it’s not because of bullets,
Bombs,
Explosions.
No, it’s….complicated.
She takes her hands
And puts it over her mouth,
Letting her breath rush through her fingers,
As she watches him walk away with another girl’s
Hand in his.

There a woman walks with her child
To day care, the bills and grocery list fills
Her head as she crosses the street,
The little girl waddling behind her.
Suddenly she feels a tug on her hand
As the girl
Falls
Down.
She watches the little girl start to cry
As she lifts up her knee to find red liquid pouring
From a small scratch.
The woman frowns and picks up the girl,
Then walks into the day care,
As if nothing happened.

Don’t you wish you were there?
There where there are daycares and
Bills to pay, and hearts that are still pumping?
Don’t you wish that man on the ground
With his children were standing tall and proud,
Alive?
Don’t you wish the bombs would stop ticking,
The explosions would stop beating,
And guns would stop firing?

No, you don’t.
Because you are not here.
You are them,
You are there.