I wasn’t afraid to die,

I live my life,
In my suburban town,
In my clean community,
And life is fine.

I go to school,
And have my friends,
And hang out on the weekends,
And we go to the mall.

But one day I go to school,
And I’m standing at my locker,
And I hear what sounds like fire crackers,
And it isn’t the Fourth of July.

I hear a scream down the hall,
And I see my friends,
And I see my teachers,
And I see my life flash before my eyes

I was never afraid to die

I look around and run,
And go as fast as my legs can carry me,
And I want my parents to know,
I was never afraid to die,

Until it happened to me.

when i was little ,
dad handed me a shovel and
he handed me
a dress.

he taught me how to dress myself
and then how to garden ,

to dig each hole
in soft
           flesh and soil.  

ive grown up since,
gotten taller,
and can hold
the shovel by myself ,

so
i dig graves now instead .

ive saved one for dad ,
                               and ive saved one for me.

six feet deep ,
                        it’s a bed with no blankets
and it’s
perfect ,
and
it’s mine —

and
i want to be buried in a dress
i can button
                     all
                         by myself ,

because
dad also handed me a shotgun.

I used to be a Glock 40,
my aim impeccable.
I made the decision,
I pulled the trigger,
I hit my target.
Lately, I've been a musket shot;
unpredictable,
and somehow even more dangerous than usual.
I miss the center and wind up somewhere in the corner of the paper.
Dust flies from the shrapnel
where I used to have a single trail of smoke indicating the bullet, crumpled but whole,
placing a hole where I wanted it to,
and one unbroken shell, slightly charred,
dropping near my feet.
But here I am watching people take cover
as my pieces go flying, destroyed by my own chaos,
tearing anything and everything apart in its path.
I used to be deadly but precise.
Now I'm not sure what I am.
I'm certainly causing damage,
but more to myself than anyone else...
I confuse and startle people more than strike fear in them,
and that's insufficient...
I want to be better,
but I keep going off without warning,
and people avoid me to avoid getting hit,
but they're not scared,
they're simply learning,
and I don't know how I feel about that,
maybe I'm not a gun anymore,
maybe I'm the target,
I certainly feel like a piece of paper,
flimsy and vulnerable against the onslaught of lead,
blown to bits and drifting off in the cloud of dust...
maybe I don't want to be a gun anymore.
I certainly don't want to be a target.
Maybe I don't want to be a pistol
or a musket
or a bow or a knife or a clenched fist,
maybe I want to be a person.

If a busy gun takes lives
Then silent leaders do worse
They burn lives, hang knuses on the innocent
Voice your pain or get blessed with a curse
Blood shed Schools
We elected fools
Wrong leaders to lead us
Pushing useless agenda’s
While feeding us propaganda
Halls covered red
thousands of innocent people killed
At the expense of gun reform laws
Watching news with dropped jaws
We sit in silence
while the voiceless die for peace