I used to say

that I wanted to see its true face,
no matter how terrible,
and drink its essence,
no matter how bitter.
But I never actually wanted
to do that.
Rather, from a safe distance,
one where I could get
something to eat
whenever I felt like it
and curl up with the cats,
I wanted to
read about
how other people had
had to march through Sheol.
I know that on one level
that makes me merely
a voyeur of the suffering
of others.
But I didn't will their agony
and I don't revel in the accounts
of the horrors that raped them.
And my going through them
wouldn't undo any of it
on their behalf.
I wanted to know
because I felt
someone should remember
what had happened to them,
however loathsomely
comfortable that someone was.