Rise Against stuff

I was at a concert last night. A concert played by a band called Rise Against who played at the Bataclan exactly one year ago.

I don’t say this because “it could have been me” or “it could have been Rise Against” or anything of the kind. No “could haves”.

But I learned about the attacks as I stood in a music hall much like the Bataclan. Among people who were much the same as those inside the other venue. I danced among the living, and across the ocean, people who had wanted only to do the same lie dead.

I don’t know why a concert was targeted. I don’t know why this even happened. But that someone would turn such a place of joy and unity into a place of death is- something I cannot comprehend.

I feel like I knew the victims. Like they may as well have been people I met last night. Because music unites us across boarders of nation and religion and language.

The dead were part of my world.

Others have spoken about avoiding hate. But my sorrow is fury. Any tears in my eyes do not quench the fire in my belly, they feed it.

I will not turn to prejudice, I will not turn to fear. But those who held the weapons, those who destroyed a place of joy and safety and unity, those who killed - do not ask me not to hate them.