(This is the 2nd of a Quadriptych set of Poems on Peace)
Peace is not a final state Peace is not a promised land Peace is a direction a discipline a daily refusal of hate The sociopath exists The sadist masks up The profiteer of suffering lives next door The work of peace is not to erase evil but to build systems strong enough to contain it detect it dismantle it before it metastasizes through tissue Justice is not peace's opposite it is its prerequisite The trafficker must be stopped The abuser must face consequences The war criminal must be held to account Peace without justice is not peace it is surrender painted flat Yet justice alone is not enough Walls crack like old craniums Locks break like crystal goblets Surveillance falters like failing hearts Evil seeps through the smallest crevice Because evil is not only in men it lives in systems in cultures in the poisoned soil of neglect Carl Jung warned us "The world hangs on a thin thread and that thread is the psyche of man" The shooter was once a boy isolated like an island radicalized like a slow toxic poison armed like a walking war machine The gang member was once a child who saw violence as his only shield against a world that showed him nothing but its teeth The abuser was once abused The soldier was trained to dehumanize This does not excuse it explains Explanation is the first algorithm toward prevention before the next boy becomes a bullet before the next scream is normalized I have seen what peace without justice becomes I have sat with its aftermath I have listened to its brokenness and it does not heal it waits to repeat
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