Disclaimer: This is a very intense piece of work that focuses around the issue of school shootings. I wrote this last year a day after the Parkland school shooting in Florida. If you are uncomfortable reading such material, please skip this poem. However, I do believe this is such an important topic and an important read.
The boy had wrote answers on his hand to the test he had next period, but yet he'd never take that test for when he put that ink on his skin he did not know that a classmate had decided today was the day he wanted to kill several of his own and then himself. The wasted ink, the wasted attempt at just scraping by because his parents are mad he had a D last grading period. Well, does that D matter, because now that D stands for dead as he lays there on the brown tiled floor, his head oozing out knowledge along with blood from a bullet that entered his skull just thirty seconds ago because a kid decided he was tired of the things he goes through every days in these halls that resemble hell. How do parents, teachers, and the men and women on the board not see that this is a problem? Eighteen school shootings in less than two months. Don't tell me that's not a problem! When children go to school and the thought of what if my classmate has a gun in his book bag lingers in their head is not okay! This is a problem; a problem that needs to be addressed, but yet whether a man can marry a man and who the hell is standing in the Oval Office is more important and front and center in every news headline. I'm sick of it! Children are dying. Why isn't the sweet, innocent girl that was shot down by her classmate just a few days ago in the headlines? Because no one cares. No one wants to fix the problem. They want to assign blame on a metal object that is virtually useless when not in the hands of a human being who can pull a trigger. Why do we not put a greater emphasis on mental health and bullying to help children who believe killing their bullies and themselves is their only solution when its not? It's insane that the bright futures of these kids are in the hands of adults who think them dying isn't a problem. Why the hell can't they see it's a huge problem? We don't need to turn our heads. Seventeen children died yesterday. If nothing is done then that would of been all in vain just like the seventeen massacres before were. So is the boy who lays there dying on the cold floor of his Algebra class just a waste of your time? What if that was your child who laid there, wishing he had just stayed home today? Wishing the teacher had kept the door locked. Wishing he knew what he'd done wrong for someone he'd known since kindergarten to shoot him in the forehead. You would be devastated. You would be rallying to solve the obvious problem that lies in front of us. Isn't it clear? How many more bright lives have to be spared for something to be done? Please! Something must be done!
