Article voiceover
I just want to write love songs, but there’s a child dying right now in her mother’s arms after they finally reached a place that was supposed to be safe and my little longings seem inconsequential, out of touch. I want to speak love poems, but the air is thick with determined deceit and wily yarns of who is, and who is not human; and what is, and is not love; and who gets to breathe, and who must choke on empire's fallout. I want to write love songs, but the empty arms of a recently no longer, yet always-ever father, wailing silently so the soldiers don't hear them, beckon me to remember every babe the world never got to hear sing. They're writing their names on their arms: we drew butterflies at that age, the ink a playful scrawl, safely impermanent; Their safety, impermanent, never really known, their last hope inscribed on their skin may become all-too permanent: that someone will read the name on their rubble-rescued arm and know who to tell they finally learned how to fly. Why such addiction to armageddon? Why forge fantasies of superiority that destroy the world in their wake? Why do we take out revenge on children? I want to write love songs but maybe this is as close as I can get, weeping for what should have been. Honest love songs are also laments, even the sweetest ditty holds within, a dirge. For what is love, but holding someone precious for the few moments before they perish? I want to write a love song before it's too late; already that, to keep them here, but not yet too late to remember, and tend to the still living and find ways to hold empire to account. We're too tired and taut for pretty love songs, this lament will have to do and the promise we'll do our best to help the world remember you.