Desolate

The sound of the guns ring so loud in my head, and I know

that things will never be the same. Young-too young to be doing this now.

Things are not the way they should be. A child, that's it, and I may never make it

to anything more. I may meet my end here, with nothing and nobody but the other boys

beside me, with the same frightened eyes, the torture shown clearly on their faces and mine.

We move forward, retreat, maneuver around, looking for chinks in the seemingly

impenetrable armor. All the while, we prepare for the inevitable death we so

calmly await; we have nothing left to do anymore. They teach us to kill,

and they teach us the power we can have when we hold the weapons we do.

They even try to teach us to ignore the inhibitions that tell us what we already know:

this isn't what the world is meant to be.

We are meant to be with families-mothers and siblings that love us no matter what.

People that do not encourage the taking of the most precious gift given to mankind-

the gift of breath and time. We are meant to have the knowledge of how to make things better:

not destroy them, as we are now.

But that is not how it is. That is not what I now face. I face loneliness, pain, anger, fear, responsibility beyond what is prominent among today's youth.

I face-we face-desolation and despair.