Are You Not Hungry Too?

You took my Grandson’s life. One of you did. Was it you? Did you raise your gun last night and put that bullet in him? It was someone like you. He only wanted to help, to make a better Venezuela, a place where hope could live once more, a place where he no longer had to watch everyone he loved starve and crumble in despair. He believed, all the young ones did, that they had a right to protest, to have a voice and to march for democracy. None of us older ones wanted to join them. Too cowardly, too afraid. That’s all they were doing that night, those young kids, they were just trying to make a better Venezuela. He was only nineteen. He told me ‘Estare bien Abuela’, I will be fine, Grandma, and he believed it because he believed in you, in your capacity as a Guardsman to keep him safe even whilst he dared to march against Maduro. He marched for you too, for your rights, for the rights of your loved ones to have food, medicines, jobs and to live in a state free from fear. Are you not hungry too? Are you not afraid of what you have become?