Note: this poem was written when I woke up on October 2, 2017 to news of the Las Vegas shooting that ended 60 lives. I found it while looking through older poems, and it saddened me that I had to look up the date in order to know which shooting it referred to.
another morning
another mass shooting drips blood across my newsfeed
another pile of bodies with blood no longer pumping
another blood soaked crime scene in a place of celebration
another crowd with only a flag in common and a flag can’t stop bullets digging in or blood flowing out
another gun with bullets blind to anything but making holes in every body
another mass shooting and
another and
another
the American flag can only do so much with such troubled colors
red – the blood of too many victims to name anymore
white – the terror of eyes wide in panic at a loud sound in a crowded space
blue – the way we drown in our hurt as deep and wide as the ocean
this does not feel patriotic
only painful
Larissa Lee 