Saturday as my City Bleeds
with
the morning news
sitting
like a rock
in
my stomach
I
still thought
lunch
was a good idea
as
a siren comes
audible
the
restaurant stops
the
air goes out of the room
everyone
holds on
tried
to move on
like
nothing happened
then
this reminder
the
rest of the country
will
send thoughts and prayers
and
for twenty-four hours
we’ll
mourn eleven dead
there
will be another thirty
second
debate
about
our love affair with guns
the
name Robert Bowers
will
be committed to a register
a
database with other
mass
shooters and no one
will
remember the victim’s names
except
here in Pittsburgh
except
their families
Screw
your optics, I’m going in
another
white man disaffected
the
media will loathe to call
him
a terrorist, he doesn’t fit
the
profile we assume
the
one made popular after 9/11
but
when you commit murder
when
you take lives
when
you shout
All
Jews must die!
as
you finger the trigger
of
an ak-47
let
there be no mistake
that
is what you are
the
problem here is
it’s
just another statistic
even
in Pittsburgh
where
Richard
Poplawski
an
ex-marine
boarded
himself into his apartment
took
the lives of three police officers
after
anti-obama
and
anti-zionist ravings
where
George
Sodini
walked
into a LA Fitness
killed
three women
then
himself
all
because he blamed
women,
not himself
for
his inability to find
a
mate
where
John
Shick
killed
one
shot
seven
before
the police
gunned
him down
he
had been plagued
by
harassment complaints
from
women, it’s said
that
his neighbors avoided him
as
I type this poem
notifications
on
my computer
ring
people
mark themselves
safe
how
fucked up is it
to
wake up
to
an active
shooter
warning
in
a neighborhood
I
travel through
almost
everyday
how
fucked up is it
that
you can’t feel safe
in
a place of worship
in
a movie theater
while
you exercise
in
a hospital
in
a school
in
a bar
in
your workplace
on
the street
as
a woman
as
a person of color
as
a trans person
as
a jew
ultimately
and
simply
as
a human
I
wonder
how
much blood
do
you need America?
--Jason
Baldinger
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