I DON'T WANT TO KEEP LOOKING!

But their dignity and their beauty are like hands
that hold my head locked in place, fingers that pry my eyes open

There's the guy, five years older than me, who lives across the world, and paints satire on the rubble that war has made of his home, passing on hope to all who see his colors

The girl, five years younger than me, there too, who risks her life, just to share with the world what war has made her home become

The streams of people coming from a camp of hopelessness and the hate waiting for them at their next stop
The kids with their tragic smiles and weary parents, who suffer through poison just to survive their cancer a few more nights
The parade of people who should be leading us through the dark, and instead do nothing

MAKE IT STOP! I cry
I can close my eyes, but their stories will burn in the back of my brain

I have to remind myself not to neglect my own life
because I know there's no reason I deserve my life
any more than they deserve theirs
I got lucky and I don't do nearly enough to repay that debt
absorbed in my petty spats and triumphs

The least I can do
is respect these other people
enough to read their stories

Even when those stories send me reeling away,
tears stinging my eyes
Even when they leave me choked and struggling for air,
I CAN'T LOOK AWAY

None of this is fair, none of it is right
There is pride in pain and beauty in sorrow
and even though I might want to
that's not just something you turn your back on

**I hope that if we all look at each other's stories, maybe, we'll stop jumping at shadows and start seeing the people who cast them.