Nothing is lost that was love

To whoever built the bombs: you built nothing
you are nothing
another fool thrusting his white rage against the possibility of hope, like a thousand others
for a thousand lifetimes
have tried to do

and I know you know
the insurmountable nothingness within you
and I hope you know, you broke nothing, destroyed nothing
merely manifested a hearty reminder of the void against which we fight
however wide it grows, whatever from it comes

To whoever fired the rifle: you ended nothing,
you took nothing
I’ve read of the lives you snuffed, each a triumph,
decades of resilience and love and beauty
tightly raveled families, communities of purpose
but you, boiling over with a vapid rage and fooled like a million others
by the false prophecies of fake gods
you are not even a footnote at the bottom of the
chorus we chant to honor the lives that happened to no longer be
because of you, the lives that were impossibly larger
and more fruitful
and more evergreen and ongoing than the void that created you,
from the void you return to. These lives were love, so these lives were
not lost.
Nothing is lost that was love.