What Do I Want?

(or how do we walk away)

Each day the world we live in breaks my heart. Everywhere a child is hungry and terrified. Another woman is gang-raped somewhere, everywhere. Another body is dumped into the river. A soldier straps on his machine gun. The factories churn out the bullets and the bombs. A prisoner in solitary confinement loses his mind. The drug addict collapses in the stairwell. The reasonable men make just decisions. The mothers wail.

I watch a video of a toddler, covered in debris and ash and blood, shaking uncontrollably. His black eyes bear witness to the horrors he cannot comprehend. He holds up his hands before his face, on each palm a stigmata of ruined flesh.

What am I to do? What am I to pray for? What do I want?

Ceasefire. Yes. Now. This instant. Now. Stop, stop, stop, my heart screams.

But I know tomorrow, today, right now, always the violence will continue. Somewhere.