“Over the next two-and-a-half traumatic weeks, the Uvalde community will say goodbye to the 19 children and two teachers killed in a mass shooting.” –Huffington Post
In grammar school,
we practiced duck and cover,
huddled under clunky desks,
laughable attempts to survive
being vaporized by nuclear missiles.
Might as well kiss our asses goodbye,
bigger kids used to joke.
Now ten-year-olds wear backpacks
that double as bullet proof vests,
rehearse active shooter drills.
One young girl describes smearing
her wounded body with a murdered friend’s blood,
plays dead to avoid additional bullets,
watches classmates, teachers slaughtered
during the hour they were trapped in a room
with a teen wielding an AR-15
while police waited outside.
Politicians who receive
the largest NRA contributions
deliver limp platitudes,
empty hopes, stale prayers.
Nothing changes.
More lives are lost.
Jennifer's YouTube video reading of "Nothing is Normal Here":
Subscribe and turn on Notifications for Channel 52.
Jennifer confesses: "After reading that headline in the Huffington Post, my frustration at the lack of action on the part of our lawmakers despite the escalating number of shootings in this country, many involving children, boiled over. I had to write this poem and hope enough of us are willing to protest, write, pressure, vote, or whatever it takes to get our NRA-bought-off politicians out of office and sane gun control legislation passed."
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