q&a

how do i feel? How do I feel?
how the fuck do you think I feel?

how would you feel

if every day you were sent to die
walking to school
knowing you might never come home?

how would you feel

if you could see blood-spattered lockers
bullet holes in the floor
and the smiles of your classmate’s cadavers?

how would you feel

crouched in the dark
heartbeat in your ears
and an active shooter in the building?

now it’s my turn to ask a question of you.

how do you feel

knowing we’re dying by the thousands
schools turned cemeteries
children turned corpses?

how do you feel

fingering your money
firing your guns
faking your concern?

how do you feel

now that we’re not crouched in corners
now that we’re standing up to you
now that we’re rising?

we’ve been scared for such along time.
i think it’s time you feel the same.

By Avi Burton

A poem from Disarm: A Themed issue Responding to Mass Shootings in America