Bare Arms

When shots are shot and your first thought is your gun and not

The blood on the ground, the blood in the air, the blood on the bullets, the blood of despair

Check yourself, the wreck of yourself, the mess of yourself, the less of yourself

As compassion dies a little each time you say the same words, the very same lines that drip from your lips

Your thoughts and your prayers, such a hollow refrain, always the same, always your claim until nothing remains

But the blood on the ground, the blood in the air, the blood on the bullets, the blood of despair

The screams of the mothers, the fathers, the sisters, the brothers, the families, the friends, cling to each other, their tears never end,

The gun begun trauma ricochets every time, tearing at hearts, every name underlined, each day gone without a change.

No place safe, the fear remains, the anger disdains, the echoes hollow, each cry sustained from shot to shot as each day wanes

With blood on the ground, blood in the air, blood on the bullets, the blood of despair

The anger that follows that builds in the void of the ones they have lost, the ones you avoid in the talk of your guns, the lie of your prayers

Your right to bear arms, as each step on the stairs brings the gun closer to a new target. To whom do you pray, I wonder?

This thought, this prayer ignores that the once alive also had rights, their own pursuits of happiness

Halted,

Midlife.

Stopped.

Murdered.

With blood on the ground, blood in the air, blood on the bullets, the blood of despair

Is this what we want, America? The right to hold a cold, hard, thing meant only for killing in our hands or

Life, liberty and the right to hold our beloved in

Our…bare…arms.

Author's note: Advocating for gun safety and gun control laws is something that many gun owners care about. I started this poem after Uvalde but I have watched and grieved with many as our nation seems politically paralyzed. Guns should not be the leading cause of death for our children. We are not at war. This is preventable. It is August, and we've already had 400 mass shootings this year, 2023. Something has to change. We have more guns than people, if a good guy with a gun was the answer, we would have seen it work already.