We watch the Amanda Todd video, huddled. We see
the cruel comments, the hatertrolls who scour the worldwide wireless web of lies to pollute
We say, that’s so sad if only I had been there I would have helped you Amanda.”
We learn about Rwanda. We giggle nervously about the silly names, “Tutsis?” We snap
off our laughing when they tell us about those hatertrolls who scoured the land with their machetes
We say, “I never knew if only I had been there I would have stopped it.” Against Machetes?
We read Ballad of Birmingham. Jamie Colt says “well it was only four that’s not like a genocide.”
Mandy Sims asks what a genocide is. So Jamie tells her about
The Holocaust
and
Rwanda which Mandy was absent for
and he recommends some movies
at which point Mandy bursts into tears and runs out of the room.
And I bet you that Chrissie Kowalski, who is black and whose parents don’t let her talk about segregation, would have been close behind had she been here and you know if I was her I’d do that too
But hey I’m just plain old white so I guess it’s not the same.
Mandy Sims went home early that day. At which point Jamie stopped meeting her gaze
And we all were careful when we talked about the things we had read in magazines and the paper like
Caylee Anthony
and
September 11th, 2001
And we never ever mentioned Sandy Hook because after that day our teacher told us that Mandy’s sister was killed in a shooting at her school
And I barely mentioned it anyway but after that day I was extra careful not to talk about how everyone in my family does drugs except me and how sometimes
I see things that aren’t there
And how I can’t sleep and my mom won’t leave my brother’s room since he got blown up in Iraq, and
I see all the the problems I pretend not to and
sometimes I wonder if they do too…
…
…but most days
I just live through these things and
wonder why they happen, briefly
and then continue on my way, you know
just in case Mandy Sims happens to be walking by and she understands why I pause.