School Shooter

School Shooter

‘Shooting star’

You were born of the same 

stardust, the same love 

but you lost your soul on a quest

You were the soft target-

the weakest link in the class

the school, the system.

Abused by drug-addled adults

who were your guardians

and educators

when you came home to a home that 

didn’t exist 

The indifference of the happy ones

hurt as much as 

the blows of the bullies-

ridicule pierced holes

in the arc of your soul

and it sunk to familiar depths 

until you turned the tables.

Rejection was the wind in the sails

of the mental ship that took

you to the darkest seas

of violent imaginings 

the vortex of digital Neverland

where lost boys become pirates

arming to kill random innocents

In ransom for their lost souls.

Now your mind is a putrid fruit

twisting on the vine of perversity

feeding on hatred-

unseen-unheard hurt-

the anti-nutrients that fuel 

the garden of inhumanity

where children like you-

-become nobodies

 fodder for breeding 

reckless nothingness. 

You arise in fearless-ugly

unquenchable vengeance-

you master the underworld

until you become a

weapon of mass destruction

battling for the glory of annihilating 

anybody

to remember your name. 

We condemn you.

You are evil.

You robbed us of

hopeful innocence.

But

We created a world

where we gave you

a military weapon

instead of loving care

indifference instead of

connection to community

And

we stand by while

more like you

are growing up

in a childhood as hopeless

as Hades and a way to escape

even more hopeless.