From Tragedy Comes Change

Mom look at the painting i made at school.
Mom, check out these projects. I got all A’s pretty cool!

Hey mom, there’s a kid in my class, i think his light is starting to fade.
I told my teachers but all they say is,
“oh he seems okay.”
Mom I’m kind of afraid. That boy is angry and so full of rage.
I tried to reach out but he said,
“Just go away.”

No one seems to care when he talks about the guns his dad has “for hunting deer”.
I’ve started to just keep my head down; i practice being quiet and not making a sound.

These people didn’t want to hear what i had to say.
But then they all showed up crying at my grave.
They didn’t listen about the little boy blue. The one that took the money his father saved in a shoe.
At just 16, he went to the local gun and trade show, and walked away with enough to make the pain grow.

“Hey mom i lov…” Was all i had time for before i saw my own blood there on the floor.

Why cant they see this is wrong? No other family should sing a funeral song.
But it doesn’t matter as long as congress is being paid by the NRA.
“Who cares about a school shooting, don’t take our guns away!”
The country needs reform.
With worries of guns and being killed it’s no wonder our students can’t perform.

No more will they be weak as they run into every street.
They will march, and rally, and walk out until the politicians acknowledge their every shout.

Please don’t let me have died in vain.
Everything I’ve lost, yet still there’s so much to gain.
Being looked at like they are deranged, all while fighting for their lives and for the laws to be changed.

By Alyssa Sammartino

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