Scar tissue and why you killed a man
The opening months of the War in Ukraine opened old wounds. I wasn’t fighting; I was safe at home, but it touched a nerve. Chipped away at the plaque I’d built up over time.
I’m posting this piece below across 2 publications today. Here’s why:
Originally I killed a man once was meant for the more personal reflections on digital life over on Love to Hate and the joy we find, but it needs to also sit on the Ukraine specific Sunflowers in the blood.
Please jump betwen them. I think you’ll see why.
Ukraine: Another East
I haven’t been to Ukraine, one day I think I will. Still, I felt I knew something of that place because it looked just like somewhere I had been - and seen what a war can do.
The country villages, older women in headscarfs, hard looking winters, damaged homes and displaced humans. This time I felt it off the TV: a hate in the channel.
Families dragged across and buried under shifting borders. And war. And murder.
War without killing
You can know of war without pulling a trigger. It hangs around. You drive through its flotsam, through a void filled with distrust, breathing an air saturated with hate.
Revenge is always due. People don’t forgive ethnic cleansing. Some even still celebrate it.
Killing without pulling the trigger.
Everyone in the chain is a link. You were involved; maybe you delivered them on time or turned a blind eye. The blood may not be on your hands, but the death is, will be, and will scar the inside of the hardest hearts.
Thanks for being here. I’m not here to shock: if anything I’m looking to find hope. I’ve just got to get through the thoughts left behind. Past the perverse levels of hate we still find. Maybe together there’s a drop of love to share too - much better than following its trail in the snow to another cold soul.
Stay safe, stay human. If you like this work please share it with others and jump across to the other publication - see what you find.
Best wishes,
TE
I killed a man once
I saved his life.
After his slip
steam poured up to the sky
information leaked and returned
I knew it was to come
confirmed in the pauses
in crackles and cyphers
we agreed
an end.
A steaming empty brass case
sinking in floured snow
sweated fleece
stinking pores and arteries opened.
Radio towers blinked
another command.
His hand I grabbed
a moment between the eyes.
He fell sideways, slipping under a heavy sack.
Flowing black.
Cracked ink and death over head.
I dragged him to his fate
Overjoyed.
A life saved
just in time for another to decide
the traitor’s fate.