I won’t be made to feel guilty for something I had nothing to do with.

But this madness, this cannibalism permeates the air, the water. The very light we see by is poisoned by our inability to comprehend the blood that flows, in other people’s veins, on the walls. Splattered on the walls that are scattered on the ground.

I am afraid of becoming immune, unresponsive. Of becoming one of the untouchables. Of being able to drive by the remnants of homes and livelihoods without any understanding of the lives that made these things real.
I am afraid of becoming part of the faceless mass that stands by in uncomprehending apathy while lives are scattered like so many shreds of confetti. Does it matter if those lives where there beside you, shared the same colour passport, whether those lives called some other piece of sky home?
Yes, of course, it does. This is what we call reality.

Reality, what we swallow. Like the vitamins we take everyday because we can’t be bothered to forage out carrots and apples and kiwis from our fridges and supermarket aisles.
Today, someone will die. Here, have a reality pill. You will never meet her, never know the way she clenches her hands while walking, the way her eyelashes lie languidly on her cheeks when she sleeps. And so you will not be touched; that is as it should be. She didn’t really matter, anyway. Starving to death, dying of AIDS, scraping by on welfare, shot to death, torn apart by a bomb.
Today bombs went off, the world over. But first, you need to make sure you’ve taken your daily dose of reality. Then you can face the onslaught of mere blood and flesh that pockmark the globe. And here, it was close to home. It was almost you. So here, you are allowed to express rage and wonder and fear and grief. But there, that’s too far away. So why should you care, especially when those victims come so close to be your enemies.
We divide our grief into portions, their sizes proportional to the amount of reality we swallow every day.

I’ve given up on the world.
I’m sticking close to home. Where, simply by my presence, I can affect some sort of change.