Poetry: A Blood-Soaked Pebble

It was a notification on my phone

Waiting for me

When I randomly glanced down

At the end of fifth period.

And I went to sixth period

Just like that

 

Not a blip, a stutter, a collective pause

No announcement of their deaths—

The day goes on

A current rushing too quickly

To be affected

By a blood-soaked pebble

 

Then come the speeches

And the wrung hands

The quiet, removed grief

Of a populace

Too accustomed to these

Moments of Silence

 

Quiet voices

Crash into each other—

Rising—

Sizzling with anger—

A thunder storm of butting heads—

And that becomes the story

Life or Liberty

(The latter does you no good

If you’re dead)

 

And you know the worst part?

There is no need

To write a date on this poem.

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My sincerest thoughts and sympathies go out to the Roseburg community. There aren’t words for the horrors that they and so many other towns have to endure.