Newtown Connecticut

I walk where they walked.

The innocent curiosity haunting the air.

I sit in the shadowed corners with them,

their minds blackened by the memory.

The memory of their friend, once a blur of joy,

Their friend crimson covered and unmoving,

looping in their head.

A deafening reminder

The scene is sickly silent.

An elementary school - now a tomb.

The tender bodies mangled

Huddled together, under tables,

limp hands clasped together

large bodies covering small bodies,

a last act of kindness,

As gunfire shattered the air.

The classroom is a maze.

A wooden desk stands in the middle

The drawers unlocked,

The contents?

Bright coloured pens, blunt pencils.

Relics of a world I’d never known,

Never wanted to know.

The unheard cries taunt me.

Children

begging for a mother,

a father,

a god,

a saviour,

but all that came was him.

The linoleum underfoot whispers grief

A long corridor opens to an icy room,

A still form under a white sheet,

the hands, the knees, the bones of a child.

My child, though she is unrecognisable,

A mess of blood, bones, the blue shirt from her birthday.

This a foreign body,

wintering

in a cold room,

hand still outstretched,

still hoping.

The drive home is a vacuum,

the radio playing the updates in a loop.

A deafening reminder.

They say everything

“He was ill, he was unstable, he was suffering”,

and then I am home

childless again.