Darkened theater
in Aurora exploded
like shattered heads
into thousands of
unwelcome stories
Life plans spattered
like arterial blood.
Nothing is the same.
Evangelists tell us
God was not in the
theatre because we
ban him from schools.
Cell phones ring in
dead kids pockets,
will ring for months.
Freshmen in college
dorms will get new
room mate assignments..
Never will know why.
Mothers will struggle
for words to describe
fathers kids won't
remember. He went
to see Dark Knight
Rises and a crazy
man shot him and
he died, but he
always got garlic
butter on his popcorn
and he loved you.
Kids will wonder if
the killer saw himself
as a dark knight.
Parents and husbands
will go through closets
and tell themselves
stories about what
their child or wife
would want them
to save to remember.
Friends will make
up stories about how
their friends felt when
the dark exploded,
about who froze and
who was brave.. I will
have to decide whether
to say yes to next teen
plea for midnight movie
based on the stories I
tell myself about madness
and chance and what
happened in Aurora..
Well written, Victoria. Yes indeed scary stuff. Unpredictable, chance, could be late night, could be early morning. We just don't know when or where the next crazy one will appear.
ReplyDeleteWell Done, so insightful and haunting~ My son was at this movie at midnight, in a different state! Scary and so extreme...innocent people in the dark waiting to be entertained and then this...a crazy on slot of hate~ Madness does exist!
ReplyDeleteStories unbidden, indeed. This is a gripping poem and so terrible that we have such events to write about. Excellent capture of so many feelings here.
ReplyDeleteYou captured this horror so well with words and form, Victoria. Heartbreaking read, so hard to understand things like this right smack dab in the middle of innocence.
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