war is, like, really bad - Amanda VanNierop
In times of great personal distress,
I find it helpful to put things in perspective.
What I mean by that is this:
It is 2015. There is a war going on.
There has always been a war going on.
There has only been one year of my life
when a war was not going on,
and that’s because everyone needed a break:
to build more guns, more tanks, more bombs.
There is a war going on somewhere far away,
and I am ashamed I don’t know exactly where
or between who or even why.
I know our boys are there.
I know I see it in flashes on the news
before I change the channel.
I know candidates like to talk
about the war that’s going on,
but no one likes to talk about who started it
(unless it wasn’t us).
I know we’re optimistic that we’ll win.
I suppose that’s not really a surprise;
we’re always optimistic that we’ll win,
even when we don’t.
And when we don’t, we pretend we did.
Anyway. I am a selfish person, I think.
It is 2015. There is a war going on
in some country I can’t point to on a map
and my biggest problem is that I’ve discovered
I like girls.
I have realized something that some people
won't realize their whole lives,
and when I do, it’s almost stupid how obvious it is:
War is, like, really bad.
I find it helpful to put things in perspective.
What I mean by that is this:
It is 2015. There is a war going on.
There has always been a war going on.
There has only been one year of my life
when a war was not going on,
and that’s because everyone needed a break:
to build more guns, more tanks, more bombs.
There is a war going on somewhere far away,
and I am ashamed I don’t know exactly where
or between who or even why.
I know our boys are there.
I know I see it in flashes on the news
before I change the channel.
I know candidates like to talk
about the war that’s going on,
but no one likes to talk about who started it
(unless it wasn’t us).
I know we’re optimistic that we’ll win.
I suppose that’s not really a surprise;
we’re always optimistic that we’ll win,
even when we don’t.
And when we don’t, we pretend we did.
Anyway. I am a selfish person, I think.
It is 2015. There is a war going on
in some country I can’t point to on a map
and my biggest problem is that I’ve discovered
I like girls.
I have realized something that some people
won't realize their whole lives,
and when I do, it’s almost stupid how obvious it is:
War is, like, really bad.