Omran

Sitting

Sitting in front of my screen

Every day, day-in day-out

Flipping through post after post

Trying to lull off into sleep

Suddenly, I stop

I stare, my soul shivers,

I see him

Watching

He is watching 

He sees me

The boy in the ambulance

He sees me watching him

Face marred with rubble and cuts

His left eye badly hurt

He sits

He stares into nothingness

There is nothing there....

Tired

Little hands on his lap

He just wants to play

He just wants to do what little boys do

He wants to play with his brother 

"I'm so tired" 

Screaming

All around him screaming

Screaming of pain

Screaming of agony

He sits, he watches

He does not know why

Bewildered 

His little bare feet

Dirty and bare

They just swing and hang there

His eyes stare out into nothingness

His face bloodied

He is alone 

Yet he is not alone.

They find his sister

She sits

She stares

She is wearing pink

She is hurt

She stares into the same nothingness

Lost

I sit watching him

We are lost

We sit watching

We sit watching all of them

We sit 

and sit.

The little boy in the ambulance

He is 5 years old

His name is Omran
His brother is badly hurt

We watch

We go to the next post 

We see the cute otter do his flips

We laugh

We carry on

He is still Omran

They are still alive

They have lost their brother

Their hurt brother is dead

His name was Ali

Ali was 10

We sit and wait

Till we see him in our feed again

Till then, we sit, we watch, we laugh

We "like", we "cry", we "love", we "get angry"

We sit and we watch.

Almost robots

He is now "the face of war"

He is now the representative of how badly adults have messed up

He is now the child that is no longer allowed to be a child

Are they both looking into nothingness,

Or can they just see our collective soul?

We watch

We stare

We read

We pray

And sadly, we carry on.

--Mona Banawan