No Escape
You can call it whatever you want,
put whatever label on it you like,
but nothing makes the end result
any less bitter.
You can close your eyes,
vow to keep your mouth shut, turn and
turn and turn away from the truth
but, in the end, there’s really no escape:
he was only seven years old, maybe less,
and he’d been shot through the neck.
And your mother can still love you,
and your girlfriend or your wife
or your brothers and your sisters
can still love you, but some nights,
around midnight, you remember:
he was only seven, maybe less,
and that’s as old as he’d ever be.
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dVerse Poets
Open Link Night #278
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Scrambled, Not Fried 
Yes, to all of that. It hurts, just to know these things happen.
powerful piece! ❤
Oh god, this breaks my heart. You write this so powerfully, Ron.
This overwhelms with a deep sadness. Well done Ron.
It might be a knee-jerk reaction to close ranks when a child does something unforgivable, but it’s still wrong. Parents who stand by their children and deny they did anything wrong are probably why their kids are so amoral in the first place. Very powerful poem.
Your poem sent a shiver down my spine, Ron.
Powerful, and yes a shiver down my spine as well. How do you live with that?
This is visceral in its pain. What a tragic thing to have happen to a child…to be the instrument of death. Yes….as said by Merril, this sends shivers down my spine.
speechless 😦
What a stark, somber bit of reality that rends the heart.
There is much wrong in our world and sadly we learn to live with it…
Anna
chilling, and necessarily so. thank you for this.
I once worked on a project doing portraits of children killed by gunfire as a keepsake for their families. I can still see Akeal’s face–and it was no substitute for the real thing. (K)
Profound sadness-powerful.
Wow, this was hard to read. But we need to face up to these things in order to prevent them from happening over and over again.
eh ouch, intensely sad … how can this happen?
Living with guilt and regret is a heavy burden. I am so sorry for both of these people.
Ron, this stopped me in my tracks. I cannot imagine the horror of the tragedy you described (and wrote about beautifully, if I may use that descriptor.)
This poem conveys a harsh reality which we need to come face to face with. The horrors in the world must come to an end. Let there be light!
This is powerful and uncomfortable as we want to close our eyes, but do not. There is truth to be read and faced. Well written!
Ron, Wow, this socks a punch. The killing of child: nothing rips at us like this, nothing matches its horror.