Antidote to Terrorism
by Arleen Lorrance

 

I will not become you,

Certainly not in deed,

But neither in word,

Thought, or feeling.

You breathe hate,

Create carnage,

Seek to entrap the world.

Were I to say, “Kill them all,

Bomb them, vaporize them,”

I would become you.

I will not become you.

You relish bloody bodies,

I render tenderness.

I will not become you.

I stand with those who love,

You hide in rows of wilted weeds.

You smell of rotting flesh.

I will not become you.

You turned from humanness,

Ranting, shooting, killing,

Worshiping death.

I will not become you,

Nor speak ill of you

Nor hope for your demise.

I will not become you,

Vengeful, vituperative,

Condemning.

By your deeds you will suffer defeat.

In your loathing,

Your quest will shrivel,

And the wind will blow you forever

Into the cold darkness

From which you first emerged.

You will not have prevailed

Because WE will not have become you.