The wolf, the rabbit

Just spent an hour trying to break up a fight between 2 teenage boys. The web of violence around them is intricate and generational (I know because we talked and talked and talked). The pause is only temporary, and one or both of them might be dead tomorrow, or next week or next year. I want to destroy the system that produces the culture that produces this for them. I want them to have every opportunity and privilege and joy, I want THEM to lead the world, not be mired in violence and trauma. But the world has failed them. A knife, a gun, asthma, and threats of dads coming to kill. And all I can do is put my body between them and talk the way I wish somebody would've talked to the bullies who tried to fight me (they all lost), or my mom when she was beating me (she lost, too). To be a voice of calm and reason and love against the tide of drama and anger and fear. I feel sick, like crying and puking, because what I absorbed is so ... sad. 2 grown men stood across the street, watching passively, I had to yell at them to get even 1 to come over, and he was NO HELP AT ALL, taunting, shaming. Toxic masculinity is a plague that hurts us ALL. This world breaks my heart over and over and over. But then maybe, just maybe, something good will happen. After the victim got safely home, I walked a mile with the one wanting to throw the punch, talking in the shadows, listening. Kudos to that kid for enduring me. He is a wolf in this world, and I understand. I've had to be a wolf, too, and still can. I want us to be able to be rabbits. Something bigger than me has got this, and also sometimes you have to be the one to wave a flag