Featured in the 2016 Spring Issue of Rambunctious
Send Me Afua Addo, '16 Send me, send me I shout as I wave my arms frantically in the air, send me. I am a young boy, but why does it matter? All you need is a person that is willing to go. Well I am willing so send me. I will look death in the eyes, so that your child will be safe and call this place home. I will crawl through the thickness of the mud and drink the tears of my enemies to protect you and your little brothers and sisters. I will cry out to the sky until the clouds part ways so I can burn in the heat of the sun if it means that you will never have to. So your sons and daughters will never have to shade their eyes from the glorious sun rays because they are afraid of losing their sight. Is that not what you want? Someone who is willing to die for you so that you can live on? It's all about sacrifice. You want to give me the hope that I will escape from the jaws of death so that you will never have to leave the comfort of your beds. So that you will never have to humble yourself in the dead of night to pray for a boy who will never return. Who are we fighting again? Perhaps, all that time raising my hand has distracted me. The blood has drained completely from my hand now and I no longer remember why I raised it in the first place. Who are we fighting? The enemy? The war itself? Or the urge within ourselves to return to peace and tranquility. But why stop now, you say? Why should there be a ceasefire when we have become so good at launching our missiles and driving our tanks? Look at our endurance! See how we have spent centuries of our history on the battlefield. We're professionals and we're proud of our accomplishments. We are proud of how easily we can rip men and women from the embraces of their families. They still smile and wait for tomorrow. But tomorrow is a day that I hope to wake up and see nothing, but light and smell nothing but the the fresh air that the birds so eloquently move around with the flutter of their wings. I hope I will never again have to awake from my slumber to declare myself a sacrifice for people who are tired of war and for wars who are tired of people. I pray that tomorrow I will not have to wave my arm frantically in the air to say, "Send me, send me" because I am young and it does matter. One day there will be no need to look death in the eyes because death will have dwindled in its power. Only then will your child will be safe and call this place home.