I Would Tell You, by Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

I would tell you
Their names
But those killers
Don’t deserve the fame

I would tell you
How many so far
But it’s been countless
Over the decades to start

I would tell you
We’ve had enough
But not even Newtown
Shook things up

I would tell you
Not to worry
But the bodies pile up
Everyday in a hurry

I would tell you
It is safe to go outside
But even I look for exits
Out in public inside

I would tell you
It was isolated
The tune of 100 a day
Makes that claim negated

I would tell you
To go see a movie
To go out shopping
It is safe at school

I wish I could tell you
Not to fear bullets rule
I wish we could
Give the slip

Of the industry’s grip
The merchants of death
Profit off of blood baths
Caskets in masses

I would tell you
It is getting better
But the numbers
Keep rising forever

I can tell you this
We can never, should never
Get used to this
Living under the gun

Every hour, every day
Under the sun
In the dark allies
In our homes

In our workplaces
Losing loved ones
It is up to you
To not become complacent

It is a generational fight
The right plight
To stay alive, without fear
Of someone’s selfish fetish.

Make the tide change
We don’t have to live this way
Non violence should always
Win the day

They are afraid
Of our vote
They are afraid
We are right

And we are.
(end)

Mass shootings are unfortunately a very unique distinct and vile quality of American life that does not have to be that way. I wrote this poem as a response to a poem someone read on a Twitter space today about the Pulse night club shooting. And that was after watching a made for TV movie about a very real mass shooting that happened in 1988, the night before. And that is not including my JR yr HS yearbook which had a two page spread called “The Year In News.”

In that two page spread, it had pictures with paragraphs describing the person or event in the pictures under each. One was a picture of Reagan, another was the firs artificial heart guy, another the space shuttle. But also the picture of a mass shooting in California in 1984.

And the 10s of thousands in the past 40 years in between the few I mentioned and others you may remember but I don’t. The sad fact is that they happen every fucking day, and until the industry can be sued into behaving, and the shops being held responsible for where their products end up, this is not going to stop.

But unfortunately the industry has a grip on a large enough minority that holds the rest of the nation hostage. It is insane to think being number 1 in firearm violence can be solved by adding more firearms to civilian hands when we already have 400 million in civilian hands. I never get a good number that would suffice the firearm worshipers. Would 1 billion guns in civilian hands be enough? How about 10 billion firearms in civilian hands? How about 50 billion? How many is enough? I say they don’t care, they simply want to win to own us, not because they are right, but because they know they are on the wrong side of history.

Don’t ever get used to this. It may be a long road, and things may seem hopeless right now, but every voice counts, and the industry CEOs and profiteers of violence cannot win unless we let them. Use your voice, use your vote, don’t stop, no matter how long it takes.