"Never Yet Forever Home Again"

"Home Again” - A poem published in honor of the 8th anniversary of the Stoneman Douglas Tragedy

Contents

- Introduction

- Excerpts

- Preface

- Poem - “Home Again”

Introduction

This poem sheds light on what a school shooting survivor’s experience of yet another traumatic incident regarding threats to public safety can feel like. It also expresses the frustrations that arise when "things are brushed under the rug."

This is the too common reality of many survivors… They have to go through it again. They have to relive their past. They have their voices silenced.

It’s true. It’s blue. And I never would wish it unto you.

But with this poem

It can show them

A sliver of how it feels...

Is this really real?

Excerpts

Static voices through the call

Static noises from police running down the hall

Static policies that make us fall

Down the “rabid” hole again

Yep, keep playing pretend

While children have to play dead

Forget

We don’t want to know

Turn a blind eye

Ignorance is bliss

'Til I’m the target and he just barely missed

“Negligence!” I scream

And yet they don’t give a

“Damned is our future”

And yet they don’t care to

“Care about lives”

And yet they- they’ve never heard those words

Our screams are muffled with supposed policies

I don’t feel strong

Cuz how do I explain something that can’t be strung

A chord—it struck a chord

The note that played was flat

Lining not silver

Aged yet the same

Dead and yet alive

Praying and praying why

I couldn’t see or hear for days

It’s like living but in a tragic play

So when people ask

"How are you?"

I say “I’m okay”

An actress—a role I play with grace

With a smile on my face

But the truth is I hurt inside

But I have this pride

Where I can't (don’t wanna) cry

I’m scared

And I’m mad

And I’m back in therapy

Cuz my heart oh how it beats

The sound of a door opening

And I lose it

Flooded by the tears

Yep, guess I’m back to those years...

Preface

They ask, "Are you okay?”

But how do I respond

When this has been the scariest day

A third of my life ago

I survived it once

I can’t do it again—no

And yet I did

Poem: "Home Again"

I’m home

My head’s on my mom's lap

I’m sobbing

I’m home

I see two pens

A black and a red

Here I go—I’m crying again

I’m home

I had driven home with my pockets stuffed

Snatching my belongings before running for my life

I’m home

Because by some miracle

I ran fast enough from a killer

Again?

Not again.

Again?

Not again.

Again?

Again.

Again!

Again!?

A normal day once again

Thumping noises

Not again

Fire alarm sounding

Running—I hear screaming

Not again

Playing with a ceramic heart on my hands

In my pocket lay the turquoise gift

Cuz mine is blue once again

It wants to be worn on my sleeve

But it can’t

Not again

I won’t let it

It can’t

I can’t

Not again

"Pull over"

Panic attacks while driving

I’m mute but I’m screaming

My mind yells but my mouth is silent

"Pull over"

My body is in shock

Cuz a monster has the mind of a glock

"Pull over"

My friend said

"Pull over"

My dad said

Static voices through the call

Static noises from police running down the hall

Static policies that make us fall

Down the “rabid” hole again

Yep, keep playing pretend

While children are forced to play dead

I know

A day scarier than the 14th?

No, it can’t be

I know

And yet it is

Because I know

I know how this story ends

I've lived it once before

And yet they want us back

And yet they want us to "forget"

Forget what happened

Really?

You want me to forget the fact that the no one knew what was happening

Blue uniforms fluttering about lost

Like leaves in the wind

You want me to forget that the threats are imminent

But no, they claim

They don’t care about the prices

"He's just having a 'mental health crisis'”

Keep on ignoring the lices

Til the scalp goes numb

Til the cancer takes over my fate

Til it’s too—

So his contagious condition has me having nightmares

That I didn’t run fast enough

It has me dreaming and crying

That I won’t run fast enough the next time

Cuz I learned this time there always will be

A next time

And that I should live in fear

Cuz no one wants to hear

The concerns I take up

...

"Roll over"

People say

Forget the chain of command

"Roll over"

Forget

We don’t want to know

Turn a blind eye

Ignorance is bliss

Til I’m the target and he just barely missed

“Negligence!” I scream

And yet they don’t give a

“Damned is our future”

And yet they don’t care to

“Care about lives”

And yet they they’ve never heard those words

Our screams are muffled with supposed policies

I’m scared

And I’m mad

And I’m back in therapy

Cuz my heart oh how it beats

The sound of a door opening

And I lose it

Flooded by the tears

That same ocean that came about in the last ice age

The gates have been cannoned open

And it’s pouring out again

I spent years building up the city walls

But this razed them down

I spent years carefully designing the moat

But this redirected its path

I spent years

Trying to heal

And yet trying not to feel

I’m strong

I say to myself

You’re strong

My therapist says to me

Strong?

I don’t know

Weak?

I don’t know

I just don’t know

I—

"You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met" says my therapist

And I just recite that to myself to keep my heart beating

Cuz that cold lil ceramic heart that I felt impulsed to put in my pocket that day

I spun it around as the alarm blared

And the officers ran

Turquoise blue

My favorite color

Dark veins in its marble

Mumble

“I’m okay”

As they say

“Weren’t you at that high school?”

Now’s the time to ask me?

Seriously?

As we’re living through this?

Again?!

Took a few days off...

Yeah I felt like a fool

But who should really be ashamed

Are those that claimed

“Nothing happened”

“All is well”

“And besides we won’t tell”

So no one knew about our reality

Keep up the buried down ideology

And I had to walk back through the halls

But I refused to use those doors

That the monster touched

No I could never...

No I didn’t look back

When I was running

I thought of Sodom and Gomorra

And thank God I did

So that I didn’t see the monster’s face

Yep I’m back in this headspace

The new me meeting the old me

"No, no, no"

My therapist says "You're a new you,

You’re a stronger you"

I don’t feel strong

Cuz how do I explain something that can’t be strung

A chord—it struck a chord

The note that played was flat

Lining not silver

Aged yet the same

Dead and yet alive

Praying and praying why

I couldn’t see or hear for days

It’s like living but in a tragic play

So when people ask

"How are you?"

I say “I’m okay”

With a smile on my face

But the truth is I hurt inside

But I have this pride

Where I can't-- I don’t wanna cry

Cuz who am I to cry

"When people every day die"

They said

Cuz who am I to cry

One person said to me “when you haven’t lived through real struggle”

Cuz who am I to cry on tape

“When you haven’t been r—“

Said another to me

Cuz who am I to cry

“When you haven’t really lived”

Cuz who am I to cry

“Who are you to cry”

They say

They say

They ask

They question

They taunt

They tempt

They stab

Their words haunt me like shadows

Their words pain me like rock throws

So I never cry

Because I need to be taken seriously

So I never cry

Because if I do

They’ll think…

They’ll think?

Aren’t I the one that always says

“I don’t care what people think”

I don’t have their permission to cry

Cuz apparently there’s a threshold I must meet

In order to say I’ve lived

Through pain

Through suffering

Through “real” life

So I mask for years pretending to be happy

When deep down sadness brews

So I feign it as anger

But really it’s the sadness

So I wear the mask of gladness

Because “you’re the happy one”

Of course

Of course that's me

This course

Is this the route I chose?

I pose

I force the smile

It’s just for a while

Or forever

Or “it’s whatever”

Cuz it’s “nothing”

It’s just “weird”

I say

I repeat

I chant to myself

Repressing the truth

“Why would it be nothing”

My therapist asks

“I don’t know. I don’t know.

I suppose that if I cry…

If I accept my past…

I’d be accepting a damaged version of me.

And I can’t confront that reality.”

Then the flood of tears came out of me.

*

I’m home

Back to the place I worked so hard to depart from

Not talking about the warmth of the home where the people I love are

Not talking about the one I love and cherish

I’m talking about the place I abandoned seven years ago

The place my heart was gentrified and forced into

The place of shadows where safety was no longer imaginable

I’m home to a place I despise

It doesn’t feel like home

It’s a prison

It’s a place I worked so hard to break out of

Spoon digging attempts so I relearned to reconstruct

And yet what’s my luck

Because by some miracle

I ran fast enough from a killer

Is this life supposed to feel like a thriller

All I wanted was to get home

My physical place of rest

But the discursive place is a test

Of how much I can endure

No such intention is pure

Tempted to drink the myrrh

Questioning if I’ve been forsaken

But no I won’t let my faith be shaken

This “home” I wholeheartedly hate

A familiar reality I wish to trade

Sealed with a shake

A tremble

A quake

A quiver of my lip

A flutter of my eyelid

A forming of a teardrop

A barter I wouldn’t make

Yet my heart is ready to break

It already did

And my life feels fake

It really does

A new home I must make

I’m home.

My head’s on my moms lap

I’m sobbing

I’m home.

I see two pens

A black and a red

Here I go—I’m crying again

I’m home.

I had driven home with my pockets stuffed

Snatching my belongings before running for my life

I’m home.

Because by some miracle

I ran fast enough from a killer.

Again?

Not again.

Again?

Not again.

Again?

Again.

Again!

Again!?

“Never again”

We had said

But again

Yet again

My heart was bruised

My mind was used

My trauma was set loose

It finds me late at night

It finds me while I speak

It finds me and it leaks

Pain

Anguish

Grief

Spilling out of me

Forever

Again.

I'm Home Again.