The world stops for no one, but you wish it would.
How many people will be lost in the chaos?
How many stories will go unheard while attention is elsewhere?
How many have already slipped through the cracks all over the world?
It would have to happen on both sides of any conflict
but if every soldier just walked away
said "no"
"we do not terrorize or kill each other anymore"
who would be there to punish them
for allowing peace?
***
A couple nights ago someone was sitting under my window playing music.
It wasn't heavy or blasting bass - it was kind of pretty.
I don't look outside anymore, but I did this time.
A small 4x4 SUV with an american flag sticker on the back windshield.
A person scrolling through a phone in the driver's seat.
They made an OK sign and held it up to the window.
I closed the curtain and retreated back into my room.
I have these kind of panic attacks sometimes
where my mind just tries to understand a situation.
Like a computer suddenly dumping all its files on a subject.
I guess it's a way to cope.
I've read the OK sign thing started as a joke
on 4chan or some other dark and murky part of the internet.
Over time - in just the past few years - people started using it for real.
Usually to indicate some reference to white supremacy.
It is not a welcomed thing for me to see.
Though I had a conversation with someone once
who argued that people should "take it back"
like we take back words that are used against us
and not let it be defined by those trying to weaponize it.
Which I thought was a good point
but now I can never tell the difference
or what people mean when they use it
and it just makes me cringe.
Back in 2020
someone posted a picture of the police
making the gesture out of the window of their squad car
passing protesters on the sidewalk.
There are hundreds of examples of Proud Boys
(whatever they're calling themselves these days)
doing the same thing.
It doesn't mean someone is automatically a Nazi
but you can be sure
it means the worst to some people
and the ones doing it deliberately know that.
Sometimes I wonder if people are trying to indicate
that what they're talking about involves white supremacists or those ideologies.
Like a flag that says they think these people might be Nazis.
Or is that just wishful thinking? Hoping they're just looking out?
And what if it doesn't just stand for "White Pride"?
What if the three fingers are for the 3%?
What if they're for World War 3?
Could that be
and what would it mean if it was?
Or is it just a bunch of people
making a joke
because they think it's funny to be scary
and that's the only sense of power
they've ever known?
People who would rather you feared them
because you didn't love them
and that negative relationship
is the only way to feel connected to you?
In other words
I'm horrified
and I don't know what to do.
***
11:11
I wish everything would turn out better for everyone than anyone could have possibly expected it to.
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