Cowards

Cowards.
They are humans.
They have dreams.
They want to make it big.

They want it all like someone owes it to them.
Like it would just show up in a sock in the morning.
It doesn't.

They think it is everybody's job to give them what they want.
Like they gave it all the longing they had.
Like they gave all their time and effort to someone else's dream.

Like just wanting is enough to deserve it.
It isn't.

The boss believes it.
The client believes it.
The coward doesn't.

They can't accept it.
Their own failure.
Or a lack of achievement.

Sights are set on the next generation.
Like the child is born with all their own unfulfilled dreams.

The child keeps trying to live the coward's life.
Subdued by force.
Forced by duty.

Duty-bound to its creator.
With its own dreams in the back seat.

Suddenly the child is all grown up.
With wants and dreams there is no time to fulfill.

Another coward bred on cowardice.
And the spiral continues into another generation.

Violence.. All there is to it.

The Boston Marathon Bombings brought it back in the news.

The drama of capture of the suspects played out on competing international news channels.
The drama of blaming someone played out everywhere else. 

Some resorted to the Anti-Islam refrain. 
Some blamed misguided youth. 
Some blamed government policy.
Others tried to stand out of the crowd by sympathizing with the suspect, perhaps just to hog some conspiracy generated limelight.

Twelve years on, as they begin digging for human remains under the rubble of the mighty World Trade Center once more, I wonder.
I wonder, which side am I on?
As a 'Responsible' youth of the Twenty-first century, I must have an opinion to voice.

What is my opinion?
What am I supposed to have an opinion on?
Terror?
Religion?
Government policies?

I try my best.
I ask, 
"Who died? 
Who was maimed for life? 
Who will never be loved by a loved one? 
Who didn't get a chance to say Goodbye?"

In Iraq, was it Saddam? 
In the Twin Towers, was it the US policy makers?
In Afghanistan, was it bin Laden?
Were any drones brought down at the finish line of the Boston Marathon?

No.

"Who was it after all?"
The one who died at all these places was Someone Innocent.

Each of these incidents, like numerous others across the globe, is summarized in one line.
An act of violence against Someone Innocent.

Violence, in the name of Someone Innocent of the violence they brought upon themselves.
Each time, at the receiving end, Someone Innocent.

Each act of violence creates another group of wronged innocents who will be the reason for violence on more innocents.

Someone innocent paying for another innocent.
That's all there is to violence.

What can be my opinion on violence?
There is no logic to it. 
No morality. 
No reason. 
No justification.

No argument.
It's just that.
A downward spiral.
An act of violence.