Issue 13: I weep, and I weep
I weep, and I weep
I don't want to take away from this reflective poem so I'm just going to share it. Thank you for reading and considering our own part in the massacre of innocent children. It's important to acknowledge that the aid our government gives Israel is used to drop white phosphorous bombs on children playing with kites. That is just one ugly truth of our privilege.
I weep, and I weep
By Coco Poley
Has it ever reached your ears,
the shriek of human fear?
In my own past, that shriek has scraped a chill in my bones so deep my blood turns to ice,
frozen in the moment:
must I find and fight, or has the cry for help ceased?
I imagine this feeling, amplified,
when I see the cracked skulls bleeding, onto the streets of Gaza,
old people,
young children,
innocents panicked rushing for cover,
while bomb after frag after death from above falls on everyday people.
This is not a war.
This is a slaughter, a genocide, a massacre, and our money pays for it.
Our hands are American, and they are covered in blood.
We watch from a distance,
We American people,
We sip coffee and kiss friends,
with no fear that tomorrow,
those friends might be dead.
And we might be searching the ruins of our homes and grocery stores just to find the people we love,
because they might be a cracked skull,
they might be a pool of blood.
What can I do but watch the children die?
to turn away is to fall too deep into the privilege that protects and plagues me,
so I look.
I look, and I weep.
I look, and I weep, and I weep.