Put Your Machine Guns Down (Witchunt)

It's like they crouch from on high , settled in their distant posts
and they see me only through the sights of their rifles.
Brother, why not raise your eyes from the line of your gun,
why not take me out of your crosshairs and see that I'm your sister?
See, I am like you. Come down here, only for a moment, and look through my eyes.
They never listen.
I hear bullets humming and whistling all around,
like hissed words, like electric hatred,
as they take out the people beside me.
And I am not sad for the lives stolen from me -
I, the smaller and the less sure,
or for the blank, contemptuous look in the
dead eyes of the people I used to laugh with.
I am not sad.
I am perplexed.
I would like to seize a rifle and take aim,
choose a window, take my time adjusting the crosshairs,
perfecting the shot,
and then take out one of them.
Maybe just in the foot, just enough to give him pause.
Make him think.
But Brother, I am powerless against you.
I ought to empty the bullets from my gun, wearily,
I might as well just throw them to you.
Because I would rather be shot down by my brother,
let him spill my life into the gutters and street dirt,
than lift a hand to hurt him in return.
Is this your Christian life, brother?
This targeting of the young and the unsure?
I cannot stop you and I will not join you in your sport, so continue by all means.
You cannot hurt me, and maybe I can save a few others.
But Brothers, though you shout so loud against your sisters
and call for their destruction,
so zealous that you can hardly bear to
pause in your shouting to catch your breath,
though you have no tears to spare for the lives you have blighted
and confused,
maybe we can all put our machine guns down. Just for a minute.
Maybe get it so quiet we can hear the pins drop,
the heartbeats stop.
Maybe we will all turn and regard the wounds of our church,
whom we have ripped apart with our lips and teeth;
maybe we can take a second to mourn the breaking of God's heart.
(My God, My God, look at the crimes we have committed in your name.
Do you think this is the first time men have hunted witches
and burned their own grandmothers?
The first time we have denounced adultery
and stoned our wives?
This is not the first time we have stopped lives
in the name of Life, crippled spirits for the sake of the Spirit.
We may be different but we are not better, not as long
as the witchunt continues.)