The City's Sentence

The older brother spoke.

“Let us go to the city

And write a sentence on the streets

Let us write, with blood,

a death sentence.”

“Yes,” agreed the younger.

“Let us write with such force that they will never forget us.”

So they packed their bags.

They joined the crowds.

They set the charges and slipped away

Before their words burst from their hate

through limbs and lungs

and wrote death on top of the living word
FINISH

Two years later,

the city faced a choice.

A drop of ink spilled from the pen that hovered above the paper

The ink filled the newspapers, bled onto the internet, covered the scripts of the evening news.

Waiting.

What sentence would the city write?

There was room for only one sentence.

A life sentence.

A death sentence.

Change one word

Change the world.

Who is the sentence for?
Whose life?

Whose death hangs in the balance?

The answer,

the city's soul.

Guilt was never the issue,

Humanity was.

What kind of sentence was the new motto now seen onto blue t shirts at every sporting event meant for?

A decision made,

pen to page,

ink firmly drawn across the white paper.

Lean in,

Read,

What does it say?

What have we written?

Ignoring it's citizen's life sentence

“No more hurting people.

Peace.”

The city wrote a death sentence.

But who is the subject of this death sentence?
The murderer is the object.

But we are the subject

The death, the sin, is the ours.

Two years ago a city declared itself strong.

It still is.
A week ago a federal government wrote a death sentence
and declare itself week.