Bishti

I don't understand most of what goes on in this world. It's strange to think that despite how much I may have learned in my education or my life, I cannot even feign to understand the experiences of most throughout history.

How do you fight in a war? What is it like for a young boy to stand holding a gun in his hand for the first time knowing that he must kill someone with it, lest they should kill him. How does he stand in a trench filled with rats, sewage, and decaying bodies?

How do you watch a child that you bore leave this world before you do? How do you not die instead and forget to live?

How do you watch your husband, father, brother, and son lined up and shot for nothing more than a war? How can you get that image out of your brain?

How are you systematically raped by military men and go on living? How do you feel your skin ever again. Rape is not, unfortunately, a rare thing. I have seen the pain it can cause, how much a single incident can turn the life of someone upside down. I have seen that, but imagine that incident happend 20 to 30 times in a row. I would die.

The questions for me is simply, how? How do people survive these and so many other atrocities. I don't believe I could do it, I don't think I am strong enough.