when my old classmates see each other in the supermarket a bond stronger than that of typical alumni is between them there is a battlefield still on fire in their minds when they speak to each other, it is not just a friendly greeting
they are not just past classmates they are past comrades they relive that day together the nightmare we got trapped in with no alarm clock release the game we could not quit out of the monster did not stay in our closets or under our beds that day they speak with soft eyes and heavy hearts and tell the tale about the time they looked into the eyes of the boogie man I will never be the familiar face they greet in the grocery store I will never be an old hello met with a new goodbye I am the name they dance around the eyes that never closed the old friend who they never got to say goodbye to I am the reason they remember that day so well I am eternalized in twelve inches of granite covered in flowers in various stages of life and death it is like reliving the last day of my life every day surrounded by my classmates in their varying amounts of alive as roses a bloomed out of their chests I did not want a memorial I did not want flowers I did not want this I had years in front of me and they terrified me but I should have gotten to live them I should have gotten to live you know, I wanted my life to have meaning but I am gone and it does not mean anything to you because there is no meaning in a memorial there is no condolence in candle lightings no faith in these flowers there is no progress in a plaque if more kids are dying this same way let the flowers die too it must have meant nothing at all but what you saw of me was just a school ID and I looked like a nice kid I bet you thought it was a shame that a good college-bound kid like me died this way but you shrug and say “Another day, another school shooting.” this is how desensitized you have become to the whole thing people are dying and you are shrugging it off you weren’t there the blood is not stuck in the corners of your eyes you do not have this memory of bodies lodged in the meat of your brain you saw me without a bullet between my eyes it is easy to see a picture of me smiling at a camera and feel little more than a distant sadness tell me liberals blame guns never the killer how are you so blind? it may have taken a hundred bad days, a touch of mental instability, and a sworn vendetta but it took just one bullet tell me that an act to prohibit gun violence is fruitless in a country with an overfunded “War on Drugs” going on that puts millions of poor people behind bars every year while the upper class pop more bottles of pills than champagne pro-life picketers petition planned parenthood to put an end to pap smears thick skulls can’t comprehend the business as anything more than an abortion clinic how can you be pro death penalty, anti-gun control, anti-universally affordable health care, anti-immigration and still have the nerve to call yourself pro-life I was living my life but now the taste of metal never leaves my mouth when I look in the mirror I see blood these hands turn into spider webs in my wildest nightmares and I am still waiting for the shrapnel to wash out of my eyes I did not want a memorial I wanted a diploma and maybe a college degree in a few years I wanted to see the prettiest city in France lit up in the night time I wanted to fall in love, and get my heart broken, again and again I wanted to drink boxed wine on a rooftop somewhere I couldn’t see the stars and I wanted to live but what I got was my name in stone and my only friends are pitying eyes cast on the parentheses around my life “She was so young,” they say, “It is such a shame.” you probably would not recognize my name but I can bet you know the name of the man at the other end of the gun this memorial is meaningless you do not remember me I am only another statistic for an argument on either side my name will never be in lights or in rolling credits I am nothing more the 137th person to get shot at school since 1980 a +1 in the ever rising number of casualties and injuries a number a victim a casualty this is what I have been reduced to I don’t even have a name anymore he took that away from me you took that away from me you forgot about me, didn’t you? to you, I am just one of seven shot dead in a school library I am somewhere within a blur of faces you sort of remember on the news one night I am a sad song played over a slideshow of nameless photographs shared a few hundred times on Facebook I am a name that you will not remember carved into a stone I am hidden somewhere barely beyond the stars and just beneath the gravel I am forgotten I am gone.
1 Comment
TLK-teacher
2/22/2016 07:49:15 pm
Simply Amazing. As a teacher, daughter, mother, friend, human being, this touches my soul in many ways. Well done young lady!!!!
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