Empathy will k** you When bearing witness to sickness Becomes too much No detachment No cold an*lytical approach Can deaden the impact The willful infliction of pain and torment The destruction of dignity Faced with a flood of our lowest moments The unenviable task To rescue the past from the silence Of impending mortal ends One victim after another choking out their recollections Diffusing the shadows Obscuring our darkest corners Did it become too much? The naked face of ruined humanity That evil in men's hearts To poison all your hopes? A family left to question A life over burdened by the ghosts Of those murdered and mutilated