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Mar 30
poem 2 comments challenge: Santa Fe, Texas: What Now?
Gabby Chisamore

Body Count.


Another shooting broke out.
More innocent lives lost.
More empty 'thoughts and prayers' sent out to the families. 
Kids who could've changed the world,
Forgotten.
Remembered only as a body count. 
Families left in sorrow and without justice.
Not remembering if they told their child that they loved them that morning. 
The event swept under the rug, 
After only seconds in the public eye.  
But nothing's being done to stop this from happening again. 

Since January, 
29 shootings have broken out across the country.
And those numbers are still growing,
And more kids are being added to the body counts.
But the government is still doing nothing. 

The presidents' solutions to stopping school shootings,
Is arming the teachers.
But putting a gun in every classroom only raises the likely hood of a shooting to breakout. 

Because Mr. President, 
I don't know if you thought of this,
But all a student has to do is get it a teachers desk. 

And from there it's open season. 

We're scared of coming to school.
This is a place where the only things we should have to worry about are test scores and what's for lunch.

But instead, we're terrified when someone comes over the loudspeaker. 

We're tired of living in a state of anxiety because we're afraid of becoming someone's next target.

We're being hunted in our schools like deer are hunted in the woods. 

School is no longer a safe place.

School is now hunting grounds. 

School is scanning classrooms,
Looking for the quickest way out,
In case something happens. 

School is where fear and frustration are breading. 
And we are sick of it. 

Is walking out of classes and starting rallies, not enough?
Is marching down the streets of our Capitals and hometowns, not enough?
Is pushing politicians from offices, not enough?
Is ending companies connections with the NRA, not enough?
Is raising millions of dollars for marches around the world, not enough to make you see that something needs to change here?

You're so ignorant.
You won't listen to us because you don't want someone to touch your second amendment rights.
Well, let me tell you something,
The second amendment was written when it was legal to own people. 

Times have changed, 
And nobody needs to carry around a gun as if it were a cellphone like they do in Texas.

You're ignoring the souls who survived the shootings because you don't want people to take away your assault rifles. 

Why can't you see that we are rebelling because nobody needs a fucking assault rifle in their house. 

Why can't you see that we're taking a stand because the mentally unstable can purchase guns and nobody thinks twice about it. 

Why can't you see that we are pushing back because we are tired of being hunted like animals in a place that we were promised was going to be safe.

Why can't you see that something needs to change.

Why can't you see we don't want to be just another number in the body counts. 

Why can't you see that one child's life is worth more than every gun in the world.  



. 

 
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Posted: 03.30.18
About the Author: Gabby Chisamore
GC
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Discussion

Comments

  1. gg
    Mar 30, 2018

    Gabby, this is a powerful piece and a powerful call for action. I put an annotation on the "29 shootings" because it's important to be accurate (and that's difficult.)

    Thanks so much for sharing this.

    geoff

    YWP founder. Current work: Instagram, Mastodon and https://geoffreygevalt.com
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  1. Gabby Chisamore
    Mar 30, 2018

    I put that there has been 29 overall shootings since January because there has been 29 instances where someone has brought a gun onto a campus and fired it with the intent of hurting someone. I wanted to include the instances where people were injured or when the holder of the gun opened fire at the ground.

    I hope you enjoyed the piece!

    GC

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