I want justice,
says the clenched fist
Name the wrongs, balance the Ledger
I want witnesses,
says the sharp memory
Keep the wound open, before it closes to History
I want peace,
says the surrendering hand
Ignore the girth of the wronged, the Living are tired
I want knowledge
says the hungry mind
Feed it before it learns the taste of Blame
I want stillness,
says the weakened cheek
Dizzy from turning in the name of a god
I want reckoning,
says the severed limb
Collapsing on the successes and failures of ideals
Justice marches with law and fire,
confident clairvoyants
prophets, courts, and revolutions.
Peace walks with meditating monks,
overlooked orphans,
sour soldiers, and weeping widows
who no longer ask who started it
Religions argue across centuries
Philosophies draw across maps
Rulers construct borders and jails
People construct rites and rituals
While justice and peace
perched on the shoulders of real bodies,
tell real histories,
with real names,
spoken differently in every language.
And the world keeps choosing,
again and again,
not between right and wrong,
but between remembering forever
and surviving the remembering
Drawing and words : Joëlle Rabu 12.22.2025