We read about it on the news, that they would tell us,

back then in the wired age,

we didn’t really have to wonder otherwise,

we knew they were dying,

we saw the pictures of the massacre

of innocent lives with the bombs dropping,

little kids watching with eyes wide open,

unable to see their peer’s bodies being split apart

by the impact of war.

We watched as our parents cried,

occasional hushed conversations about someone’s …

a brother,

‘he was a lieutenant, just a shame’

they would say and shake their heads,

while the names kept scrolling across the screen.

I remember knowing then that people would die,

but they wouldn’t ever die near me

until you did.