209: Cut (it) Short
I wish I could tell my friends
it will never happen to you.
This gut-wrenching
marriage-ending
world-burning
pain, it will
never happen to you.
We wouldn’t let it!
We couldn’t stand for it-
sending your whole heart,
lunch box in hand,
to school on a Monday
and a morgue on a Tuesday.
We would never allow it!
Only we have-
a million different times,
so let’s get to the point.
It could happen to you
and that truth alone
almost does me in,
for if it did happen to you
I would never stop crying.
So I swear I’ll never stop fighting.
I’ll never stop writing
my rage
and my prayers
and my senators.
No parents should ever have to ask-
will it happen to me?
Cut it short.
Cut it short.
The ground is crying out-
cut it short.
Written by Sarah A. Speed // Writing the Good, in response to the Uvalde school shooting.