A single mother
Shot twice in the back of the head
For twenty dollars crumpled away in her pocket
Sweat
Accumulated from a twelve hour shift
Soaks first
The ***** bill itself (then the jeans of the perpetrator)
As his sneakers depart the newly developed crime scene.
The woman
Bleeding out in the street
Becomes trivial talk over family dinner

These things happen.

A priest is beaten to his knees
Symbolic representation of
Pleading
To a higher power.
Prayers fly first
From his mouth (then hit ground level)
Where they meet his teeth,
Both of which scatter the parking lot.
A rosary becomes his focus while three men escape
Taking only his
Wallet and a sense of security.

These things happen.

A girl looms over the eighth floor balcony
As she counts every passerby below, first
In her head (then again out loud.)
Emotion becomes causation split second
Everything inside spontaneously
Bursts
Pooling blood mimics graffiti wings across pavement.
Her quick descent becomes gossip
Among school yards.

These things happen.

Muscles flex firm in my jawline
Visual declaration of what my brain is processing
When you casually say
“These things happen”.
Somehow
You manage to justify pointless tragedies
Dismissing them as facts of life
While I boil away in hand made paranoia.
These things don’t just happen.
First
There is cause (then there’s effect).

See
I can’t accept the notion
That walking out your front door every morning
Is some Darwin's gamble
If that’s what it all comes down to
Reproduction and survival
I probably won’t place any bets
Because I refuse to accept
“That’s just how the world works”