Crossfire

You feel your heart sinking within the first few minutes of the meeting. Though the stone table is round, it’s possible to discern edges—and you’re on the fringe of two boundaries.
    One side spins out rhetoric like bullets, aiming for the more impressionable young. They’ve found their marks on quite a few, and riddled with wounds the few limp off the battlefield.
    The other camp suffers from lack of authority, experience, supplies. It’s apparent they’re embattled, but here and there they gain a few pyrrhic victories. Their salvos when launched land on the others’ troops, but there are too many soldiers for the left cause. Your heart aches for the rebels, as cannons fire from all around you.
   A union, what a laugh. It’s more like a civil war.
   And as you duck that last fiery, spat-out word, you fleetingly wish you joined the other club.