If a tree falls in a forest
Does it make a sound
When the woods are open and
There's only three people around

One of them remembers it
As clear as it was day
Yet as to wether it was real or a dream
She cannot really say

The second has no memory
But he wouldn't say it didn't occur
And he has the vauge memories of after
When little echoes could be heard

And the third may know the answer
But the other two can't ask
Because going down that road
Is taking the devil out of the flask

So did the tree really fall?
Or more important still
Can anything they remember be trusted
Wen they tell their stories as they will

There's a memory of a long time ago
Or was it a dream? How could I know
It's not as if I could ask you as to wether it's true
As if there were anything asking could do
But than I think of the shouting and it seems
Real enough to run from, to want to cry or scream

Was it really a laptop, or was it a plate
That was thrown against the wall, irate
Or maybe the whole thing never really happened
Maybe I misheard something, I was mistaken
Besides, it was nine years ago, I was too young
To even really realize what was going on
But even back then, I knew I was frightened
When I heard a crash before the fight ended

And some days I wonder if I would feel this way
If it was the man doing this to the woman one day
You're against abuse, and try to call out wife beaters
But you applaud a girl who whacks a guy when he cheats her
And I wonder why, if you say you care
Why you sometimes say things that make me wish I weren't there

And I wonder why you don't respect my space
Walking up to my form like you own the place
And I know you mean well, but could you stop
Sneaking up and hugging me in a way I'd rather not
I know you have good intentions, but why can't you see
That there's a reason I'm starting to get a little jumpy

But these are the things I'll never ask
Because I'm to spineless to find out at last
So here I sit, writing an interwebs litany
With a secret profile on a site you'll never see

At ease, I sink down
Into warm lime and salt waves
Forgetting the world

I remember that maroon shirt
A size too large so it hung like a sack
Over my twiggy, seven year old limbs
It was rough and scratchy against my belly
I absolutely hated the color
I was one for turquoise and scarlet and sparkles
This was a cloth of rusty mud, it was purple gone terribly wrong

Of course I protested
Whining at my mother like a cub at her lioness
Why should I have to wear this ugly thing
That you brought yesterday for no reason at all

And then you said there was a reason
In that quiet, somber way you get when you homilize to me
That tone that makes me scared enough to flatten my unruly hair

It was the first time I heard the words
Mass Shooting
But it was far from the last

I went to school that day
I tried to tell the others
Some had heard a snippet or two from mom and dad
Before being sent out of the room
But most just looked at me like I had a third eyeball in my head
They shrugged it off and went back to foursquare
They never gave a **** about the news if it wasn't Charlie Brown
And they never really talked to me more than they needed to

The grownups hurried us all along
Avoiding all mention
Of Virginia Tech
And they would nod and turn away when I told them
How was I to know that they didn't have any answers either

I sat on the swingset
The cyan dome that seemed so familiar in its vast vacancy
Was now so empty and abandoning
The bark chips were suddenly silent
In juxtaposition to my mind

I mouthed out the words
A feeling in my mouth like a jawbreaker too large to fit it but crammed in anyways
I didn't have the words for it then

How could someone do that?
How could someone just walk up
With a special stick and some bullets
And end twenty six lives
Like they were swatting at flies
And how could everyone
Be so calm and carefree
When so much harm had come
When so much blood ran
Turning to a rust color in my mind
Like that god-awful shirt

The day was done
I threw the shirt in a bottom drawer
I never wore a maroon thing again until I was thirteen
I felt glad to be rid of that jawbreaker
And the strange feelings in my gut and neck

But it was not over
None of us were rid of it

Aurora
Sandy Hook
Breaking News: Mass Shooting
San Bernardino
Pulse
Breaking News: Mass Shooting

Guys, one of our competitor's teamates was killed
It was a ******-suicide by his father on him and his mother
So please be considerate

Good God, how many has it been
When did it begin
What should we do
And how did I get so numb
To my semiannual jawbreaker moments

But all I hear is
Who do we blame?

The foreign ones?
Let's blockade them
Because it's not like we were ever that way

Maybe the ones with ****** up minds?
Yeah, they're the violent ones
It cuts me deeper than any work of my own blades

But god and the NRA forbid
That we have shootings
Because we have the means to
That we have a radicals in the U.S.
And they only came from us
But when has policy ever made sense?

All I know is
That we can't keep going numb
To the jawbreakers in our mouths