My God
My god, another school massacre? I have to say something, but there’s nothing poetic about it, they were just little kids and I couldn’t read much because it was too upsetting. I know hiding my head in the sand doesn’t change anything, but then reading all about it doesn’t change anything either. This is why I don’t watch the news, maybe it’s selfish, but my heart hurts and there’s nothing I can do, nothing, and I don’t understand it because it isn’t something understandable. I wish I didn’t know. I almost didn’t see it, why did I need to check my email?
Oh, who am I kidding, I would have heard about it, that’s the thing with this kind of news, you always find out, someone always tells you. I want to scream, I want to shout out, what’s it all about Alphie? And it will spur the usual arguments or perhaps spawn unusual ones but it doesn’t seem to change anything I don’t know why, and things like this need to change, they need to stop happening.
I just looked again. Twenty-five dead? Including twenty small children? Can you imagine? I don’t want to. Why do we have to? All you have to do is consider one of the parents and your heart will break into small pieces. And then the mind, it wants to know why, and there is no why, there is no sense. I believe in the underlying goodness of humanity, but how can I maintain that belief in light of the horribly terrible things human beings do to one another? Haven’t we learned anything? Don’t we know any better?
Then I think about the person, the perpetrator, and how awful to be the kind of person who could do such a thing, how dark and painful must such a mind be, and then I feel angry because I don’t know what to think about that, I try to have compassion and then I see a shot of a scared little girl and I hear their little voices, and how are they going to get over this? I read about Columbine and they still haven’t gotten over it, and look at the soldiers and victims of violent crimes and abuse and my heart can’t take it.
Yeah, yeah, it’s all complicated and there are all these factors and if we all knew who we really were it would all turn out okay in the morning. Except it doesn’t seem likely that’s going to happen any time soon and I just don't know what to do with all this fucked up kind of shit.
Posted for Poetry Pantry @ Poets United</a>