.when a war ends, what does that look like exactly?do the cells in the body stop detonating themselves?does the orphanage stop screaming for its mother?when the sand in the desert has been melted down to glassand our reflection is not something we can stand to look atdoes the white flag make for a perfect blindfold?yesterday i was told a storyabout this little girl in Iraq, six-years-old, who cannot fall asleepbecause when she doesshe dreams of nothingbut the day she watched her dog eat her neighbor's corpse.if you told her war is overdo you think she can sleep? . Andrea Gibson
About This Quote

The poem above illustrates the power of getting involved in hopeless situations. It asks us to imagine a little girl in Iraq who is kept awake by nightmares of war. The little girl doesn't know that it is over, but her mother does. The mother wants to keep her daughter safe, but she also knows that keeping the child safe means keeping her asleep, where she won't have nightmares.

So the mother tells her daughter that war is over, that it has ended. The story would be heartbreaking if it weren't for the fact that the little girl's father is an American soldier who died in battle. When the war ended, he was killed in action.

Instead of crying for him, she instead cries for him because she never had the chance to say goodbye. This poem uses a very simple story to illustrate how deep emotions can run when people are involved in impossible situations.

Source: The Madness Vase: By Andrea Gibson

Some Similar Quotes
  1. War is what happens when language fails. - Margaret Atwood

  2. Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. - Ernest Hemingway

  3. The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them. - J.r.r. Tolkien

  4. If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. - Leo Tolstoy

  5. Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. - Anonymous

More Quotes By Andrea Gibson
  1. Autumn is the hardest season. The leaves are all falling, and they're falling likethey're falling in love with the ground.

  2. That night when you kissed me, I left a poem in your mouth, and you can hear some of the lines every time you breathe out.

  3. But whatever However Whenever this ends I want you to know That right now I love you forever

  4. I would kiss you in the middle of the ocean during a lightning storm cuz I'd rather be left for dead than wondering what thunder sounds like.

  5. For JennAt 12 years old I started bleeding with the moonand beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts. I fought with my knuckles white as stars, and left bruises the shape of Salem.There are things we know by heart, and things we don't. At...

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