**Heavy post and trigger warning for victims of gun violence**
This is not something I've done here before, sharing poetry or my opinion on an issue other than butter. But I couldn't think of another forum in which to share this so here goes.
I wrote this back in March, it was for a class and I picked the topic before a mass shooting took place which almost made me feel the subject I chose was even more poignant than intended. I didn't want to share it beyond my class though. Since the world was temporarily reeling after the shooting, I thought it wouldn't be the right time and it made me nervous to share my writing and in doing so, potentially spark a debate I didn't want to have on gun control.
But it also felt like something that needed to be shared eventually and I had a moment where I thought "it's okay, I can publish it later after the next mass shooting". And I realized that I've accepted that there will be another one. And another one. And another one until we do something about it. Not just offer our prayers, our thoughts, our condolences. This is our reality until we act to change it.
I'm not looking to start a debate and I'm not saying I have the answer. I'm saying that I can map my life in mass shootings. I can remember where I was, what I was wearing, just like with 9/11. I remember when we stopped doing school drills for natural disasters and started doing them for active shooter scenarios. For awhile, it felt like these tragedies were inching closer and closer to me, that inevitably they would hit my life full force. But I've realized that it's not that it's getting closer, it's that it's getting bigger -- it's spreading. And unless we change something, it will indeed be a reality, not just an inevitability.
Untitled
Touch me. Feel me. My edges, my grooves, my curves. Push through my resistance, one
last obstacle -- are you sure you want to do this?
I am cold. I am heavy. Laden with guilt and power and regret.
My burden is easily discharged but that leaves me heavier than before. My purpose, my destiny, is only to tear apart, to destroy. To end.
I try to stop, to resist, but I cannot -- one, two, twenty, fifty. They fall. I see them all before me and see no difference -- a can, a deer, a human. A child, a son, a mother. Black. White. They fall the same.
And they all look the same when we meet. Indifference becomes disbelief becomes alarm becomes fear becomes nothing. I see brightness. I feel heat. I smell metal.
I do not hear them though. My own anguished cry deafening to the point of nothingness, a vacuum, void of sound.
And when all is said and done, there is a twisted peace. It is quiet. It feels cold. It smells metallic.
I leave in silence, heavier than before.
