Every night, I lay my head on my pillow and hear sirens, ambulances, police cars, sometimes even gunshots. I lay there and pray it’s no one I know:  a friend walking home, or at a party or out at the movies or the mall. You never know anymore. Violence is everywhere, all the time.

I wake up every morning and scroll through Twitter reading headlines about death; senseless shootings and brutal murders. It breaks my heart. I used to watch the news, my eyes would glaze over with the depressing images and videos from across the world. I don’t watch the news anymore. It’s hard enough to read it in writing. I don’t want to see the grieving families, faces of murderers, videos of law enforcement running frantically. I’m tired of it. Where is the love?

Yesterday, Friday the 13th, at least 128 people were killed in Paris. Machine guns and explosions played a part in one of the deadliest violent attacks France has ever seen. Innocent people were killed at a concert hall, while other people just around the corner at a restaurant were also killed. The pictures online showed it all. The panic, the mayhem from law enforcement and people running for safety. It made me so upset. Why did this happen? This doesn’t make sense to me. Where is the love?

Remember when you were a kid and when someone did something wrong they would apologize, say they were sorry and maybe even give you a hug? Life was simple and apologies existed. It doesn’t work like that anymore. The world took a wrong turn somewhere and I don’t think we’ll ever know when or how it happened. We fell down the rabbit hole and into a black hole. Now I can’t walk to the gym alone at night, the thought of going to the movies by myself gives me anxiety, and talking to strangers is something my friends and I rarely do. Where is the love?

I often wonder what it would be like to live in a world without violence. Everyone flashes you a smile at the store and people feel safe being alone. Will this ever happen? Where is the love?

Imagine if you had an exact number of the lives lost due to senseless violence. It could probably wrap the world an infinite amount of times. How sad is that? Innocent children with no chance at growing up and starting a family, college students trying to better themselves. I will never understand why taking someone’s life is worth it. It leaves this awful pit in my stomach. I feel sad for all the people who didn’t get to live their full life, because everyone deserves a life. In the meantime, I’ll just keep praying. Praying for peace in a world that seems to have forgotten the meaning.

Where is the love?