RAW

For almost two years I’ve been assailed by the pain of war. I admit that before, I only saw it through the screen of my parents, television and education. With the war in Ukraine, on Europe’s doorstep, it’s sunk into my raw flesh, into my skull.

I’m privileged to have been born on a land soaked with the blood of my ancestors, who all experienced the atrocities of war to the point of exhaustion, until they killed each other off to let only those who didn’t want to fight any more survive. I live with three generations who haven’t heard the sound of boots in the street, except for the last two years.

And what’s going on in Ukraine echoes what’s happening in the Middle East, in Africa, and all the raw, unspoken horrors in the world, in the Americas, in Asia, in the suburbs not far from where I live. While some play dice with death snatched from those who shouldn’t die, others, so many others, hold on to the life of the other loved one with desperate love, tenderness and care, through this incredible gift of life that dumbed uncultered pervert morons are blindly destroying.