No words can express this if you don't already know. Not on their own. But stories may still convey its truth in time, if only you listen, by the voices behind the words, by the myriad and the many who share their experience, all so different, all so much the same. It is a gentler course than seeing the horrors first-hand, perhaps, but no kinder, for it does not spare your ignorance. In the moment, you need not acknowledge the commonality of it, the sheer inevitability. When you face it in person, you need only face what's before you. But does this difference matter? It breaks you all the same.