that we are among the brave, the few, who stood with genocide

who understood the need to withhold water, food, & fuel, even

medicine & shelter, from “human animals” who confront us

by their very being, we, who saw the true danger posed by

pregnant women, not to mention their already extant infants,

who saw through the subterfuge of “doctors” & “ambulance

drivers” simply staging farcical escapades to reach “hospitals”

that, in any case, could no longer serve their purpose on account

of our due diligence, & praise to the perhaps even braver who

understood full well that classrooms in schools & universities,

composed of no matter how many stories, must have had tunnels

under them, which could only mean they were actually terror factories,

churning out more & more detritus it is our most solemn duty to fully

cleanse, & yet, all this bravery in the face of such threat & danger is as

almost nothing compared to some of our very bravest, those snipers &

pilots who took it upon themselves to target not JUST those armed to

the teeth with microphones & cameras & sometimes even phones,

but as well their kin: fathers, mothers, sons, & daughters, even cousins

who might once have aided & abetted these others at some indeterminate

point in life, perhaps by speaking to them when these monsters had

themselves been infants, or in so many other myriad ways we barely

dare imagine— & as we cherish these in our memory, let us not forget

those, perhaps even braver, who targeted such as armed only with a pen—

& were this epic tale of courage to continue, as so we insist it must,

let us never forget our even more brave than these, the snipers targeting

the wounded dragged by rope on blankets across the killing fields—

& thus so do we uphold our soldiers, each & every one in their hundreds

of thousands, of each & every kind & glorious gender, to each

their own, as they welcome unarmed men in their nakedness,

& even some women shockingly armed in headscarves,

caressing them with zip-ties & serenading them in blindfold

as they make sure to sing our praises upon their very bodies,

to break their bones in honor of our truly glorious endeavor—

& having recounted all of this, we must still tell, in a surge

of even greater pride, of our wonder as we commit genocide

using our favorite superpowers who aid & abet our abject

fear & terror as we man & women our gunboats, as our

pilots soar through the perilous air having only to consider

the mortal wind, a cause of nature more truly frightful

than any surface to air power imaginable, & our tanks

& bulldozers, armored of course & so happily provided

for by yourselves, our most true friends: thus we combine

our meager forces and attack by land, air & sea, to ferret out

these beasts & ogres in their solitary missions, sometimes

in their tens, nay, even in their hundreds, laying in wait for us,

sometimes actually even armed with guns, or homemade missiles,

as we, the innocent, the good, come only to help & free ourselves

of these so-called freedom fighters, come only in our sacred mission

to help those we are forced to kill. And yet, there is even more: this epic

tale cannot end without pointing to the very truest pinnacle of honor,

that peak which makes it seem that what we have thus far recounted

is almost as nothing, for it is to you, dear reader, that we pay

everlasting tribute, to you, the bravest of all, to each & every

one of you who still stand steadfastly with us

in this, our moment of greatest need.

February 12, 2024