Exhale

Global Affairs

Today was the first day I thought
it was ok to wear eye makeup,
and yet 45 minutes in I cried it off.
Because of the machete Rwandan Genocide.
Because of Andrea Gibson beating their bare chest like Tarzan.*
Because of the video the Islamic State thought it was okay
to post on Youtube for the world -  James Foley being beheaded.

How do you think Foley's New Hampshire family felt?
Do you think they could bring themselves
to ever click the mouse? To ever watch
their uncle/cousin/friend have a blade saw against his neck
from a man who thought he was doing the right thing?
Do you think they could ever forgive themselves
for letting him go? For allowing him to ever consider
stepping on an airplane? Do you think they wish
they could remember the last time they could see him?
Do you think they wish they could forget what was seen for them?

Do you think they stay quiet at the dinner table in his memory
or because the memory of him stuns them silent?

I cannot screw a PVC pipe into the cranium of every member of ISIS
and pour out why they believe their actions are just.
I cannot press a stethoscope against their chest
and find their inner drive: be it fear, revenge, power, or sheer bloodlust.
Maybe they want to end injustice.
Maybe they feel attacked. Maybe they are,
who am I to say? I am so culturally separated
that I cannot imagine what resounding injustice
would cause me to hold a knife to a journalist's throat.

But really, what does it matter?
I know no man in any big crimson armchair, smoking a cigarette
contemplating gassing civilians to make a statement.
But really, what does it matter?
I know no man holding anyone as a million dollar ransom,
beating and torturing him for being American.

I can only pray for those I can see, and those I cannot
that peace may bubble from beneath their great chairs' feet,
pop against wooden legs, dissipating into the air.
I can only pray for kindness to grab hold beyond myself,
into the places which I can touch and those I cannot,
to configure a storm inside a man's stomach that ruptures into empathy.

I can only be the best person I can,
showing kindness and respect, in the great hope
that matter is neither created nor destroyed,
and my deeds will flow into the next person,
and the next,
and the next
and the next,
into someone,
somewhere,
who needs to know
they are valued far more for love than fear.