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Monday, April 20, 2009

Poem a Day, April 20

April 20, 2009




Columbine

we were seniors and he was a freshman
stuck at our table, a home econ class
forced upon us by scheduling rules

we made him our slave, treated him
badly and excused it because he
was a mere freshman, an outsider

a year later, mid afternoon, while
his father slept, he pulled a shotgun
from beneath the bed and fired twice

leaving the gun there, he rode his bike
to a friend's house and played video games,
as though nothing was different that day

but everything was different, for him
and for us - did we do this? did we make
him that way, or just the abusive father?

it could have been us, blood puddling
around our bodies, a pained child
ending the torture, stopping the pain

I thought of him, now in prison for life,
when those two boys killed their peers
at Columbine, ended their own pain

what do we do to each to other as kids?
how many of us inflicted scars to stop
the bleeding of our own wounds?


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