I Pray For You

I hate thinking about it,
And I am not even the one that had to live it.
I hate seeing and reading about it
Yet I am not the one that will remain scarred for life by it.
I hate acknowledging that it happened,
Yet I was not even there.

I hate having sketchy nightmares about it
Yet I have not a single clue what it felt like. 

See, to me it is just a scary reality show, 

whose edited highlights I watched from the comfort of my couch.
To you it was what you lived through. Your truth.

I can always change the channel and pretend it never happened.
You do not have that luxury.
Your eyes forever burned with the gory images of death, fear... evil.

I can cover my ears every time they talk about it around me.
Your ears do not have that option.
They keep ringing from the deafening shots, the dying screams, the piercing silence of destruction.

I am selfish.
I am so sorry but I am.
I think that the fleeting fear I feel every time they talk about you and what you went through matters.
I only view this situation in terms of how it affects me.
I only think of my future, my dreams, my life.

But the truth is, what I feel can never compare to what you lived through.

I close my eyes in the comfort of my bed and when I cannot bear the images in my sub-concious, I can always wake up,watch a happy video, pretend it never happened.

This can never be compared to the horrid reality you lived through.

The past cannot be fixed.
No amount of transferring you to better institutions and constant hugs can make you feel better.
They can secure the future,
but the thing about living is how we have this tendency to live in the malignant shadow of pain felt in the past.

The word for this is 'haunted'.

You are scarred.

And for tonight, I will take a minute to remember that.
Tonight I fully acknowledge you.
Whoever you are.
Wherever you are.
Whatever your story is.

Today I dedicate my torrent of tears to you.
Tonight when I kneel, I will forget all my spoilt young female melodrama and just think about you.
I will tell God about you.
When I am begging Jesus to fix it,
I will plead that He fixes it for you.
Tonight, I finally understand how and why you matter.
So tonight, I want my knees to ache
because I knelt and prayed for you.

#147isnotjustanumber