say it

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how do i say it?
that i want lives
to be more than a number

that i scrape sympathy
from every crevice of my
heart

for the makers of guns
the builders of bombs

i imagine the families
they are supporting
i imagine the valiant
desire to protect their
treasured values
i imagine the terror
they believe we’d face
if we stopped making weapons

but there are cells in
my body that reverberate
with the echoes of bombs
dropped over jungles
and explosives planted
in rice paddies

my eardrums inherited
the ring of gunshots
in the night

and i grieve that even
in my earnest belief that
so much is possible and
so much is magic

i cannot conceive of the world
laying down guns
forgetting about bombs

this is how deeply
the propaganda has
penetrated me

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i want to say
that someday
we will stop

say it.

someday
we will stop

make it soon
please

make it soon.