Humanity!

a poem by Devika

They slit the throat of a fourteen year old;
He raped a two year old girl;
The warden sodomised the little boys;
They burnt a village down;
They shot down civilians going for prayer;
They roasted a man in a car;
A woman is killed and they try to deface her;
A husband castrated, killed for love;
An old couple battered to death-
Newspapers report this day after day:
A quiet symphony of pain.
It hurts to open the papers now
And read what journalists have to say.
They call it “bestiality”-
Do beasts behave thus?
Do they kill for sport, for ego,
For revenge, for anger,
For power, for love, for hate?
If this is “humanity”
Then let me seek to be less “humane”-
Grant me the life of a beast.
I’ll know a snake or a tiger or chimp,
For it wont wear a human garb.