February 14, 2018
I will never know what it was like to be there that day.
Screams and gunshots echoed through the hallways of Stoneman Douglas High School.
17.
Dead.

I will never know the way the students and teachers that hid in fear,
while the gunshots sounded and bullets flew.
They held each other close,
protected by closet doors and barricaded classrooms.
Silent tears running down their cheeks.
I don't know the way they consoled each other
or the way they prayed together on their knees,
telling themselves everything would be okay
when they all knew it wouldn't.

I will never meet the heroes from Stoneman Douglas.
I won’t have the chance to shake their hands and thank them.
As they quickly ushered students into classrooms
or blocked the unforgiving line of fire,
they risked themselves,
their own precious lives,
to save another’s.

I will never understand the reasons
why this would happen to an unsuspecting high school,
just like mine.
I cannot sympathize with the shooter,
who inhumanely and mercilessly took 17 lives.

We are not safe.
Fear lurks in hallways of Stoneman Douglas.
Blood no longer covers the lockers,
all of it is wiped away.
All that exists now are empty seats.
A quiet, endless reminder.

We cry for the victims and for their families, friends, and classmates.
Calling out for action,
our voice growing hoarse.
I pray that I won’t ever have to fear becoming a victim of a school shooting
or that I won’t ever be huddled tightly in a closet while gunshots ring out.
I can only hope no one will ever again have to know what it is like.

I refuse to watch as our leaders twiddle their thumbs,
coming up with excuses and reasons
rather than solutions.
Is this what we have come to?
Is this the new normal?
These 17 just names on a list of hundreds more?

No parent should be scared to send their children to school.
No teachers should have to risk their lives or worry about their student’s safety.
No students should ever have to see their own classmates covered in blood and unmoving.
We will cry out until our voices are heard.
We will unite to create a change that our leaders cannot.
We cannot bear another heartbreak and more tears.
Never again.


#neveragain