I remember when my only concern was passing a test
Now I wonder if my cousin’s about to face death
I’m fifteen, studying till I graduate
Too bad I might die for school shooters are common place
My cousin’s younger than me
But I doubt killers care about that.
If they **** another will they let him be?
Do I have to wait for that?
I don’t care what the 2nd amendment means,
I just don’t want my cousin to die before he’s a teen.

I’m fine
There’s just a choir in my head
Screaming not singing
At a girl, a child
Screaming help
Someone help
Me
I said I’m fine

I grew up trusting your judgement, was that a mistake?
Looking over the past years, it’s all I can take
If the worlds going to hell, are you the brakes?
Stop something please, be the one good mankind’s make

You’ve said it before, I believe you this time
When you said our country's greater than fine
So, you have read all the labels and news
Good that you listen, but of course you do

Who would run a place so vulnerable
With millions of others just as capable
And say to those watching with alarming clarity
That you have confidence in our dwindling sanctity

But you understand what it’s like, you must
Know of our nation’s demographic trust
Or you’d fail. No one could stand to see
You leading a people misunderstood utterly

And yet I sit here searching to find
An article that doesn’t define
What you’re doing with questionable moral
Try to not undermine the meaning of the oval

Do better and be better than last year
Give me something to say with cheer
Let me read your name with glowing pride
So I don’t cringe with disgust when you lie

You can’t change the thinking of a few
If their mind’s are connected too
I will go back to the shadows to observe
As you go back to testing my last nerve

You once asked me what I wanted to be
A policeman, a baker, whatever called to me
You would let me sing songs out of tune
So that I’d make up stories for when I grew

At first this was incredible and splendid
Broad opportunities to get interested in
I looked around at the world to observe
Yet I found every straight of hope soon curve

I see a falling leaf, green despite the weather
Cut off from the world, no lifeline to tether
I’d think of an astronaut falling through space
And I’d determine: Astronomy? No thanks

I see a bee, buzzing about. Lost from his friends
A wanderer no doubt. His work with pollen came to no end
No matter how much he did, there was always more
Daily worker’s life couldn't be for me, with so much left to explore

I see a glimpse of a squirrel, and then it’s scampering up wood
To hide its berries and acorns, chattering my ear off as it should
And then I hear silence, as the squirrel fled away
Now anything with nature reminds me how lonely I felt that day

So as I became older, I seemed to shoulder
Every fresh idea of a future I had became colder
I wonder, when did my vision become so narrow?
If I’m still young, then why do I feel so harrowed?

My star light of possibility, when did you become a telescope?
That blinding light, when did it shrivel my last rays of hope?