Rose Meriam, a senior at Spaulding High School in Barre, wrote this piece after reading about the death of American aid worker Peter Kassig. Rose wanted to respond to the violence she constantly hears about in all media. She wrote this poem to express her feelings on war and violence. It was originally intended to be a simple output, not heard or shared, but at the encouragement of her family she submitted it to Young Writers Project. Rose is honored to have the opportunity to express her opinions as a young person living in “This Unsteady World.”
This Unsteady World
By Rose Meriam
Grade Twelve, Spaulding High School
Heads that no longer belong to bodies
are made into warnings.
Blood-smeared cheeks press against the ground,
a ground that has been stained so before
but might have dreamed of soil untouched
by blame
that smells like copper and grows only sorrow.
The only sight to be seen by this dawn’s early light
is mourning
that strengthens with every new morning
and comes not with pride but with heartbreak.
Broken hearts
torn apart,
dismembered and severed, piled up.
Hearts decapitated in rows before cameras, alone.
And I see on TV
the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, lovers,
and strangers who had hearts whose beats
used to match those now silenced,
I see their hearts pound against rib cages
suddenly too small,
as they cry,
their eyes staring, pleading, bleeding tears
to a sky under which we are all supposedly kin.
But still, without pause, we sin and condemn,
placing all fault on those we brand “them.”
“It was them.”
“It was evil.”
It was war that tore this world to shreds,
leaving the living to collapse at the sight of the dead
now sightless, soundless,
all less than alive.
The god we all fight for and swear to and
stand behind in the name of causes
unwelcome, unjust,
the God that so many hopelessly trust,
sure that the dust clouding our sight
spells His name,
this God, surely, shook his head and left us long ago.
His throne, empty, has been filled with shadows.
Free will is said to be our curse,
but freedom is an illusion
made worse by delusion
when turned into a god
that has stood, waiting, beside the empty chair,
staring down its rival and friend.
For in the absence of truth,
ignorance has grown legs and then wings.
It spits across seas
and hurtles out of the barrels of guns;
it shines on the blades of knives,
spiders across pages, disguising itself as ink.
It whispers into ears of speakers
at podiums,
feeding off fears, drinking shed tears,
each year growing grander
as people postulate on the values of War.
Of bombs and drones,
of taking lives as though they are things to own,
to be grown and cut down. Yes
people postulate
without considering the cost of hate
they call it fate and continue
to foster this hate until
innocence lost becomes an innate part of life.
Battlefields act as mass
and War is worshipped.
Gunpowder smells like incense
when leaders lose sight of sense.
Sympathy converts to Apathy and
Empathy goes extinct.
And because this is the world in which
I have no choice but to live, I weep.
I weep because I am afraid to open a newspaper.
I weep because I cannot comprehend what it means to be brave.
I weep and I hope
that my tears will reach the stained earth and seep
beneath the feet of those who point fingers and kill to keep power and
I weep
because maybe the salt from my eyes
will touch the wounds of those who
press guns between the eyes of innocents,
or give speeches which only spread fear,
polluting the mind of Innocence.
And I think, as I weep,
that maybe if they saw that each
life that passed within arm's reach
was invaluable,
teeming with endless thoughts and moments
never to be repeated,
maybe if they saw this
they would not darken their knives
or dip their pens into ink made of lives
turned liquid and crimson.
Their guns would crumble
into salt from the evaporated sorrows
they had caused.
Their pens would write only love poems
in ink that smells like roses, not copper.
Because behind every title, every acronym,
every fear-ridden word, or sigh shaded in love,
there is only and solely a person.
And each of us bleeds the same color.
And each of us cries the same water.
But because these facts are ignored
and peace is disregarded,
the words of prophets,
who would not have stood
for the misdeeds permeated because of misunderstood messages
in the name of hate parading as good,
because of this, I weep
as sadness grows and takes its toll on our unsteady world
where heads roll.
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