We have rehearsed our hate; practiced our violence We have studied our pain; repeated our trauma We have neglected love; emotional abstention Let fester pulsing wounds growing on our skin We would endure hell just for the slightest chance To feel closure, to feel something else The tears do not help and time is too slow We cannot wait for these wounds to heal The time between stars is insignificant Against the time for the hurt to wane No silence greater than the enraging howl In the space between trauma We have rehearsed our hate; practiced our violence We have studied our pain and repeated our trauma Look at each other and see a mirror Loathe the image reflected back to us Seeing red Breathing red Eating red Breeding red So tired of the throbbing pain Begging for any release Exhaustion that hurts—sleep without rest Our eyes never stay shut Across the earth and in the trails of blood We circle each other smelling the scent The scent of our hate, the stench of our lust The end of our pain, the end of our hunt Seeing red Breathing red Eating red Breeding red Crying in red Mourning in red Drowning in red Nothing but red All that we see and all that we feel Blood rolls down our skin Such expansive shame Incredibly vast our guilt We’ve auditioned this moment For the day our bodies enact it Muscles trained well to take and take and take There should be no hesitation Do we deserve this, deserve this ache Have we earned this, this longing pain Despite the shame, in spite of the harm We demand justice for things we would have done Despite knowing why, in spite of seeing clear We hate what we see because we see ourselves And still we fight though we are much the same A bulwark of guilt built with shaking hands Through tears and screams, we lament what we lost Losing much faster than we could ever heal We cannot suffer this pain forever Taking breaths of blood underwater We’ve violated much, so what’s a little more We’ve hurt them so much, so what’s a little more We cannot wait for these wounds to heal We must learn to live with what we have done We cannot forgive, but maybe we can accept We must learn to live with what we have done