"They said it Couldn't be Done"

They said it couldn’t be true, that the children dying in the streets were dispensable, that their rights were more important. They said we should trust them as the people bleed and beg and plead for respite. They said to trust them that our nation wasn’t dying. They said there was nothing to be done.

The wish for innocence grows as you age, I realized this in high school; when you are faced with mass shootings, stabbings, climate change, and corrupt government policy you grow tired of having to fix everything. I can still remember the day my friends were in a shooting. I remember being miles away, helplessly texting them to make sure they were all right as rage fueled my blood. I still dream of a world where they are safe, where when night comes I don’t lock my dorm’s door and check it five times. I don’t hear children’s screams permeating the air as they are gunned down. I don’t get out of bed to shove the doorstop under the door in fear of someone being able to break through. I don’t flinch at each small sound or wake up in the middle of the night stuck unmoving wondering if in the next second, I would be shot or stabbed. They said it couldn’t have hurt that bad, that thoughts and prayers were enough, that their right to bear arms mattered more than the children dying. They said no one else would be shot, that their bickering had stopped it, and protecting children? No, it couldn’t be done.

I long for the day when I am at peace not frightened for others and myself; where mental health is talked about openly and addressed so that violence can be stopped. I can still remember my first friend who committed suicide and the horror of his funeral. But they said there was no mental health problem. They said there was nothing to be done. They sat there and watched the future die because they said it couldn’t be saved, that America was the land of the free when in reality it is the land of the rich and the land of the powerful. There is no help when you need it. The four friends I know who have committed suicide show that. Society mocks their cuts as “a cry for help” and shove them towards their death. Why can’t they recognize that a cry for help isn't weakness, isn't bad instead of suppressing and dismissing us until we die? Regret is not enough.

They tell us we are too young to know how to run a country, how to vote, yet when we are raped and beaten and left bloodied on the streets by a man we never asked to touch us they tell us it was our fault. When we fight against climate change and beg for policies they tell us we know nothing yet when we make a misstep it's our fault since we should know enough to stop it. Perfection is the only way that we are allowed to live. Perfection in what we wear, how we talk, how we live, how we fight. Perfection in what we eat, how we look, and whether or not our skin is unblemished. Instead of choice, we are left to die alone standing up for what we care about and being ignored.

I had a dream: that we all lived as one and not out of cynicism or capitalist desire but out of love and care for each other. Where Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK walked hand in hand shifting the abusive power from a beeline toward death to a brighter future. They said it couldn’t be done, that America was too powerful to regress. But where are we now?