At the End of the Disaster

 There was no fanfare.

No parades.

No sorrow,

 except for what we have suffered over the last 45 years.

 We always thought that day would come decades ago, and yet it did not. 

Instead, the lack of it taunted us, reminding us of the choices we made or did not make. 

Our justification is confusing and complex. 

We will be unwrapping it for years to come; in the end, we may still not understand.

It is not a sad day; it is a somber day to mark the end of all of the sad days. 

Thousands of them that broke us.

There were no memorials.

 No fond words.

 No tears shed.

 Forty-five years ago, we made a comparison, and it made the incarceration all these decades seem like freedom.

 We died thousands of times as we thought about it.

 What have we done? 

Photo by Abhinay Tharu on Unsplash

We embraced destruction and emotional wreckage to the highest degree.

 I was fooled in the worst possible way.

I feel shame because of that.

 I thought I could do better. 

I regret not starting a war.

A teacher once told me, with some people, that's your only option. 

No tears were shed on the day the nightmare ended. 

There were no parties and no parades.

 The great disaster came to its end quietly and left us with nothing but the pain of enduring something that should have been detonated a long, long time ago.

There is no honor, no love, no loss, no fond memories. 

We lined up like cattle headed for the slaughter.

 If I could go back and tell what this really was, would I believe it? 

Would you believe it, too? 

I worry about the answer to that. 

It's just wrong.