If I die in a school shooting
I'll never go home again.
My room will sit unused,
A capsule frozen in time,
A snapshot of how I was.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my dog again.
She will sit at the front door
Waiting for me and wondering,
Why I never came home.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never graduate from high school.
My yearbooks will sit stacked
Stopped short of their goal,
Missing years that should have been.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my mom again.
She will sit distraught,
Planning a funeral
For a child taken from her.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my friends again.
They'll sit together, missing me.
One empty seat among them,
A constant reminder of their loss.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my little sister again.
She will sit through high school
Knowing I can't guide her through,
That she has to figure it out alone.

If I die in a school shooting
My school will be stained.
Pools of students lives will sit,
Blood tattoos on the brick structures,
Marks of death ground into it.

If I die in a school shooting
Everyone will wear black.
They'll send their thoughts and prayers
To a town marred by death,
Forever to be the home of a shooting.

If I die in a school shooting
Will the world change?
Or will I become one of hundreds  
Of kids who have to die?
What will it take?

If things continue this way
Children will have to live in fear.
They'll look over their shoulders
Always worried and wondering,
If they'll die in a school shooting.

He doesn't burn photographs
He doesn't join therapy sessions
He doesn't smoke too many cigarettes
Nor he drown himself into alcohol
He scratches his wounds daily
And never let them heal
He doesn't try to get rid of the pain
Instead he let it grow on him
He waters the seed of sorrow with his tears
He feeds it with the manure of old memories
He takes it to sleep with him
And nurtures it in himself
Till the moment when every single drop of his blood gets replaced by this pain
Until his fragile heart can bear no more
And his soul starts overflowing with emotions
That's when he dip his pen into this pain
And empty his heart on a piece of paper
He bares his soul for us to feel
He creates poetry that the world would cherish for centuries to come

(read forward, then backward, line by line)

I ran.
Not knowing what else to do
There was so much blood on my hands
It was mine
The kitchen knife
Caught in my chest
Guilt
Consumed by
Fear
I was heightened by
Adrenaline
But running on
Wasn’t enough
While trying to stay calm,
Losing control
It was me that would end up
Dead. Because
He was
In front of me
The whole time
It was too late
Trapped
I found myself
Locked in chains
My fate was
Death.

The poet lives two lives.
One on the outside,
And one in their mind.

When you look in their eyes
You could see an abyss.

If you looked long enough
You could sink into it.

But most people don’t see it.

Take the time to read the words, though,
And you would know for sure.

The poet lives in two different worlds.

Like a porcelain doll,
She shatters,
Her soul crumbles into tiny specks,
Her being fades into nothingness,
And she no longer exists.