Didn’t a little piece of you die in Newtown?
A little piece of me died there.
Babies.
They were just babies.
Cut down like wheat
Babies
Six and seven years old
Still learning how to read and write
Big block letters
Unicorns and baseball cards
Teachers
Jumping in front of a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle
A Glock 20SF handgun
Hoping to save one

How did we not all die in Newtown?
How did any of us walk away unchanged?

Didn’t a little piece of you die in Tucson?
A little piece of me died there
Christina Taylor-Green
Nine years old
Dreamed of changing the world
Came to see someone changing the world
Bullets sprayed across a parking lot
A Glock 19 semi-automatic with a 33-round magazine
Six dead
A day later the parking lot was a crime scene
Surrounded by yellow police tape
While onlookers took selfies
And looked for the blood in the pavement

How did we not all die in Tucson?
How did any of us walk away unchanged?

Didn’t a little piece of you die in Las Vegas?
In Virginia Beach?
In Chippewa Falls?
In San Jose and White Swan and Sebring and Aurora
In Yountville and Paintsville and Nashville and Asheville
In Cleveland and Chicago and Detroit
Just as in Lutcher and Gravette and Ascension Parish
In a Pittsburgh Synagogue
And a Charleston church
And a Sutherland Springs church
And an Annapolis newspaper office
And an Orlando nightclub
And Marjory Stoneman Douglas High
And an El Paso Wal-Mart
And just outside a Dayton Bar

What do you do after dying so many small deaths?
Where can you stand in the howling wind?
Nothing can be done
Nothing will be done
If we didn’t do anything after Newtown
If we didn’t do anything after Parkland
If we didn’t do anything after Las Vegas
What do you do after dying so many small deaths?
Do you just keep on dying?