Separated Earth

My uncle showed me a map of the world today. It had bright blue oceans and lots of different colored countries. But when I look at maps now, I do not just see colors. I see the lines we draw to keep people out. I think about the kids who live on the other side of those lines. When a war starts, the grown-ups tell us who we are supposed to hate. They use big words on the news to make it sound like a game. But it is not a game. It makes us scared of kids we have never even met. We start to think that because someone speaks a different language or has a different face, they must want to hurt us. That fear gets inside your head when you are small. It is like a seed that grows into a big, thorny tree. Once that tree is there, it is so hard to chop down. Even when you grow up, you still look at those other countries with tight shoulders and a fast heartbeat. I think that is why the world stays so broken. The kids who learn to be afraid of each other grow up to be the bosses of the countries. They still have those same thorny trees inside them. They make rules and build walls based on the fears they had when they were ten. I wish we could look at a map and just see land and water. I wish we did not have to learn who to fear before we even learn how to read. I want to forget the bad names we call people on the other side. I want to believe we can start over, but the news is always so loud.