I’m numb to the news
of another school shooting.
Makeshift memorials
and yellow police tape
edge a chainlink fence.
I’ve witnessed parents comforting children,
police officers delivering solemn updates,
and politicians making paper promises.
I’ve read the posts that blame,
the cries to come take my guns,
the standoffs, and then nothing gets done.
Still, schools reopen,
classes resume, and
memorials eventually are removed.
Yet, somewhere,
a young person festers,
hints go unheeded,
and he (sometimes she)
finds access to a gun—
then more memorials
and yellow police tape
outlining another fence.
Qua human:
I will sympathize
with those in pain,
and with those
no longer in pain,
and with the person
who caused the pain,
and with all of us
inured to the pain,
complicit in allowing
the cycle to continue—
like yellow tape
circling a school fence.
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