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Of Course, Again

May 18, 2018 

Numb. No shock. No more reassuring thought that "it could never happen here."

Of course it can. Of course it will.

My child chooses her seat in each class based on how quickly she might be able to exit when the shots begin.

Our children know we will not listen,
Or legislate
Or leverage political capital to change this.

Nothing will change.

You are expendable, Children.

We will be over here quibbling over the phrase "well-regulated" and the contemporary corollary of a "militia."

We will wring our hands and unconsciously drool "thoughts and prayers,"

But we will not stiffen our spines, nor stamp down our feet, nor speak in any kind of emphatic declarative sentences.

We will perhaps mutter or pontificate, and we will probably mumble and bloviate.

You are right, Dear Children, not to trust us.
You should be ashamed.
This is not how we raised you.

But not to worry,
In cities and towns across this nation, there will continue to be fewer and fewer of you

listening in fear
and casting down your eyes in disappointment and grief
because you no longer have ears to hear nor eyes to see.

Your bodies, riddled with bullets from weapons of war, have bled into clean, stark, numbers that will quickly be ignored.

Today's number is 10.
Today's city is in Texas.

I am numb, and we don't care, Children.
No longer believe us when we say we do.

Of course you surely stopped believing us quite some time ago.
We did not bother to notice because most of you do not vote in mid-term elections or show up at town hall meetings on a Wednesday in October.

We are liars in a land of lies
Where thousands of you lie under earth and stone.

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