this is the american dream:
someone walks into the store to ask about buying a gun,
and the response is
automatic.
this is the american dream:
a bullet is fired through another human being in the name of patriotism,
and it is called an honorable discharge.
this is the american dream:
they ignore empty shells of bullets and bodies and
musk it
with baseball and the scent of apple pie.
to be honest, i'm really
******. toll
the bells for another memorial service
because once again, in the face of brutality,
the country continues to recoil instead of kick back,
and now more families are huddling together to watch
another bury all
the warm bodies of their children,
trying to find an explanation
but drawing a blank.
meanwhile, the rest of the population wakes in mourning,
drinks bitter news and coffee hot off the presses,
rifles through magazines loaded with shots
of more people needlessly killed,
and watches politicians chat about dead bodies like the latest fashion trend,
ads for casual tees
televised just in time for the spring season.
but begging the government to discuss change is starting to feel like
scraping the bottom of the barrel of a gun, and there is only empty ringing in their chambers,
echoes of thoughts and prayers and gunshots
while they mourn loudly about how these times have been trying
to cover up the fact that they aren’t;
that their complicity,
so vile, lent
itself to triggering the current mess.
and their solution is more surveillance, stronger security-
or in other words, more people with guns and also authority.
they still plead the 2nd, but that’s
bull; it’s in a weapon
that originally sanctioned slavery
so instead, ask them why the ones killed are always exercising their right to bare arms.

no, guns don’t **** people.
but people with guns
**** people.
and it’s not like guns are being used by anything else.