To my beloved family,
mourning alone
without a sanctuary to
gather,
And to
the 49 bodies my
eyes know only as
that:
My body calls you
my own
and feels your absence
achingly.

He crawled into our homes
as children.
He took his position,
aimed, and unloaded
from the disappointed eyes
of our fathers.
He shot his rounds
of shame in the words of
our mothers.
But he did not leave us there.

He found us again
in the pews.
We threw our bodies
face down
under the altar,
eyes closed and bodies heaving.
He held us in his sight
through the prayers of our pastors
that erased you and I.
He called for support
from the holy assembly,
teaching them to gag
again
and again
and again
and again
and called us Abomination.
But he did not leave us there.

He placed the target on
our chests
when we sat quietly in class.
We sat there drawing pictures from
our dreams;
pictures of dancing bears and
rainbows and flowers
and tall queens.
His war cry, “******,”
echoed in the halls as
we counted each step towards the
shelter of home.
But he did not leave us there.

So you and I,
we found each other.
We held each other close and
wiped the tears away with
the gauze we knew to
carry
close at hand.

We built our own
sanctuary
And sent out a search party
to invite our God.
I remember our surprise
when we found that she was
already there,
laughing and dancing as our priests
conducted their holy music.

We invited the tall queens and dancing bears
that we thought only existed in
our minds;
bulldogs in tuxedos and foxes and a
princess. And we all
laughed and cried
and danced and
kissed

Because we were safe.

And our walls and hymns and
sacred prayers
kept him from finding us.
But he did not leave us there.

He found us again.

They call him Omar, son of ISIS.
We call him natural fate,
familiar face,
child and messenger
of every word and deed and stare and sermon
we have ever run from.

In the midst of celebrating our life
you ran,
trampling over those you loved as he
hunted us like dumb animals.

You ran for the exits as our family was
mown down,
member by member.
Each scream systematically and
irreversibly
silenced.

In your final moment you
let out a desperate cry,
fingers still on a keyboard;
your words forever unfinished,
forever unsent
to the mothers who
still loved us.

I heard your cry that night.

I heard it as I left
another sanctuary.
I clasped my heaving chest
trying to hold it together.
I ran my hands along my body,
pushing fingers into bullet holes
that I felt
from miles away.