It is 3.17am. Sleep doesn't come. I can hear the sound of trauma. It is distant yet right here It is a nightmare yet I'm awake It is silence yet that silence is deafening It is subversion played out by white collars and mighty trucks Crushing little people We are lucky It's not Tiannamen Square We are blessed It's not North Korea We have much to be thankful for It's not Nazi Germany But they don't help these thoughts they just morph into a void of pain The pain of looking at your suffering through the eyes of others' indifference But we do not stand alone There are those who weep beside us for whom we are neighbours real people community Their tears mingle with our own and together we find a gentle if inadequate balm for our souls The houses may be going down the street Their occupants our own neighbours now gone but hope and love never die They prove their worth on this battlefield... Nicki 7 September 2017
