A Dotard deals directly with death
His empty head wastes it’s breath
Fire and fury; war and worry
Life lost like a blink of an eye
A flash in the dark and then we die
Another ****** on the news
Black, white, Muslims, Jews
Fears of terror on the rise
Weapons of sizeable lies
Pray for Paris, stand with me
Pray in public for people to see
We’ll send our thoughts, a share, a like
And we’ll declare another drone strike
Tears shed for the injured and dead
For every white city stained red
Another elementary school mess
Caused by a child’s carelessness
Or some ****** having fun
With the barrel of his gun
A classroom of souls sit silent
Victims of a life so violent
Education spent on waging war
Using the pockets of our poor
America’s defence, say the boasters
Our children, new age holsters

A mother explains the world to her son
That’s ruled under finger and gun
Until a time when tragedy hits here
We all live life, paralyzed in fear
A world in decay and that’s okay
Because her child won’t ever know
The sky on fire raining ash-like snow
Won’t ever see the rising sea
Will not hear the screams of the free
As they rally together for peace
And are rained down on by police
Higher he will have to rise
Higher, after he dies
No longer burdened by the blow of living
In a time of eternal unforgiving
Plunged into a nightmare, he screams
Softly, slowly, delved into drowning dreams
As his mother stands above
Holding him under with love
A monster, a fiend they’ll see
An American reality
Another victim of violence
A soul becomes silence
Hearts break, tears are shed
Out of jealousy for the dead
For all the world’s war and strife
He’s just another casualty of life
On the news, a leading millionaire
Offering a thought and prayer

33 guns
thousands of bullets rain
58 fall
thousands of bullets fly
500 more wounded
thousands of bullets spent,
one man,
thousands of bullets.
Guns roll out,
family treasures, sport, food, keepsakes
Power and destruction,
life and death.
Thousands of guns out,
now people are out.
Hundreds have fallen:
schools, theaters, clubs, concerts,
malls, stadiums, streets– but don’t take away our rights…
Thousands of bullets, stinging farewell kisses

this world is
falling apart
terror is
everywhere

natural disasters
striking every other
day it seems like

kids bringing guns
to school where they
are supposed to learn

old men shooting up
music festivals leaving
50 dead and 500 wounded

police killing innocent
black lives who are
doing nothing but
living their lives

im so sick of it
this is not my world
trump is not my president

this is not the world
im going to raise my
unborn children in

i refuse to live in
a world where
terror is everywhere

i just want to feel
safe without having
to worry about if
im going to
survive another day

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