In Littleton, Colorado
I lay on my living room floor
reading about other people's lives.
The light on the fire colored leaves outside my window
indicates that the coming of the end of the day, another day.
In this magazine, the National Geographic dated November 2004,
I see the brightly colored reefs of foreign countries,
people swimming and caring for their side of nature.
I see Australians enjoying the rare summertime rain,
I see people dressed with heavy coats and packs
trekking through a snow covered landscape in Kelly, Wyoming.
I see people dealing with their lives, their stories, their problems.
I see people.
And suddenly I see the horrific images of global terrorist attacks,
the aftermath of a train bombing that left 191 people dead,
191 families with some essential being in their lives torn away.
The burning cross, that masked man at the 1972 Olympics,
the skeleton of a burnt car and the lucky frame of a blown up building
that was able to remain standing.

These events, they happened years ago.
Why do I care? They don't concern me, don't even remotely involve me.
I am not a terrorist, I do not believe in killing others
for the "better" of another.

The most death in my neighborhood is that of the old man
who lived down the street and died of heart failure.

The article tells me that terrorists no longer target single individuals,
like the assassin of Tsar Alexander II and the killer of Abraham Lincoln.
But now they aim to kill the highest possible number of people.
Of living similar people with red blood and hair made of keratin.
Because the bigger the better, right? Right?
And because when they do , they strike fear into people,
they turn to the leader of the people, put their hands out and ask
"What now?"

Then I flip the page once more.
And in Littleton, Colorado,
I see the terror, the rage, the grief, etched into each and every person's face.
1963, 1972, 1983, 1995, 2001, 2004.
I feel the fire in the pictures. I know that heat.
It's the same heat in my fireplace, in my campfire.
It brings me warmth and those people death.
We are all the same and yet very different.
I feel the ash on my face and the aftermath of hatred
And then I know that I am not just in Colorado.
I am everywhere and nowhere.

Those images make me sad, afraid.
Why are our lives like this? Where is the peace?
It can happen, I'm sure, if we find the solution to the problem:
however, my idea of peace ≠ your idea of peace.
Because you Sir, member of Al Qaeda, wish me dead,
and frankly Sir, I wish you never existed.

As I sit at my computer I feel myself really alive.
The clock on the wall behind me ticks.
My mouth tells me I'm thirsty and I feel my fingers are slightly cold.
I am no longer apart but a part of this world and I now know it.
What can I do now? Be scared when on the light rail?
Check and double check every car
to be assured it will not kill me?

I saw people but now I see people.
Those numbers that meant nothing now mean everything.
I will be 19 next September will be if my life stays the same.
But those people in the coffins, under the bricks,
They are people and I am people
and there, but for the grace of God go I.