Parkland Ground

We stood together in the courtyard
to memorialize who could have been our peers.
Those who misunderstood jeered as we walked through the halls,
and yet we marched on.

Seventeen minutes.
Seventeen moments of silence to chill a heart
for those seventeen that lost theirs.
Seventeen times spent looking over my shoulder at each loud noise.

All gathered around,
though numbers don’t seem quite so safe anymore.
A door slams and I flinch,
searching for the attacker that was born from a needless fear.

To be a student,
having the thought of someone armed,
storming in to class and ending future.
This isn’t what we need.

By S.T. Caswell

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