Remember

Remember the screaming?
Remember the hollow eyes?
How can you not remember?
I do.
History cannot be repeated,
the loss is too much.

Their screams haunt me.
Years have not lessened their echo in my dreams.

SCREAMS
Can't you hear them?
Can't you see the hollow eyes?

Can't you hear
the mothers wailing as their children are ripped away?
Can't you see
the savage wounds on the dead fighters?
Can't you feel
the gray ashes of incinerated children falling through your fingers?
Can't you smell
the hellish fire consuming the weaker?
Can't you taste
the metallic blood in your mouth?
I can.

Remember the fires
Remember the fighters
Remember the dead
Remember the dread
Remember the mothers
Remember the fathers
Remember them. 

So many massacres.
Remember the Holocaust?
Death by fire and gas.
Remember Hiroshima?
Death by radiation or evaporation.
Remember the Native Americans?
Death by sickness or by bullet.
Remember 9/11?
Death by thousands of tons of steel and flame.
Remember Paris?
Death by a hail of bullets.
Remember Orlando?
Death by shotgun.
Remember Sandy Hook?
Death for children.

Don't you remember the screams?
Don't you remember the empty eyes?
Don't you remember the glassy tears?
Don't you remember the weeping mothers?
Don't you remember the bloody wounds?
Don't you remember the stench of death?
Don't you remember it all?

Remember it now. 
Keep it fresh in your head
And do not let it happen again.
The world would not survive
Another Holocaust
Another Sandy Hook
Another Orlando
Another 9/11
Another Hiroshima.
It wouldn't.