Guns are everywhere in sight
Muzzles, fire and fright.
Blood running through sewers
like flooded rivers in mid-May,
when it should be running through veins.
Slain bodies once filled with life
are now filled with undeserved death.
Pain seeps through the eyes
of brutalized victims as they weep.

A mother pleads to God
with hopes He will breath life
back into her daughter's lungs
as a child stands over the rotting
bodies of bystanders,
and waves at the flies
Unrest fills the air
while fire's are burning under water
Tragedy burns the face down to a tear,
Could Hell get any hotter?

Mirages mirror terror,
Silence in broken mirrors.
It may seem that voices don't exist
in places like this,
And that a difference lies off
in the distance;
out of reach, unattainable.
But they do.
A blind man's eyes become
his hands and his ears
when he needs to see,
While the mute lack a voice,
they still find a way to say,
"Hope is never all lost."

They need to know they are not alone.
Battles are being fought all over this world.
War, famine, sexism, racism.
A fight between mother and father.
Grief for the loss a lover.
We can all relate,
in one way or another.
Ignore ignorance, become informed.
Silence does not defeat violence,
nor is strength needed to beat it.
Courage and a heart
are needed to defeat it,
along with the will to believe
it can be defeated.

Throwing punches with fingerless fists
and broken spirits can seem useless,
but more has been done
with less.

Remember, a voice with something to say
is harder to forget
than a voice
that is
silent.