Breaking News
Not breaking nor news to us
As our eyes flick across the image,
colanders sifting pixels of sand
through the cracks
As we scoop up more, change the channel
The words that slip off their tongues
As meaningless to us as the pixels on
our TV screens
As a siren blares from some indifferent cigarette-stained street corner
A corner we trod past to buy
a soda earlier that day
Casually wondering whose foot missed the brake
Whose callused hand dropped the grenade
Whose finger pulled
the trigger
Whose gun-barrel hatred shot the scene now re-enacted like one of our TV dramas in front of our eyes
We block out the signal by cutting
the wires
Wishing for the gray-white mesh of
static that merely chokes the news reporter’s voice
As she describes something we have
seen a thousand times before
A movie watched one too many times
A movie we can repeat the words to
without a second thought
But a movie that always seems to be
playing at every stubborn theater
We forget about it long enough
Until our alarm that
  blares the next morning
An unwanted reminder
  we have lived another day
While other people are gone
Our parents will quietly
  discuss it in the kitchen
While on our way to school
  the radio repeats what
  we’re sure everyone
  already knows
The scraps of words are tossed casually from people’s mouths and left uneaten
A vibration in our pockets
A trembling reminder of how quickly
our actions can be launched into space
An emoji with a tear
The only types of emotions we know
   are the ones we can click on
Hit send
Just another gunman shooting
   up a school
Another bomb blown up in an airport
Another terrorist attack at the end of a finish line
Another flag at half staff
(It’s hard to remember seeing it waving at the top for two weeks straight)
Another false comfort:
“At least it didn’t happen
to me.”
Another buzz in our pocket
Another tap and click like the cocking of a gun
Another reply of “Yes, I heard.”
It’s hard not to when hatred is now
being filmed on every screen
When we know the stories so well,
that nag like the subconscious
feeling of forgetfulness
That silent knife-prodding stalker
A background noise that always seems
to catch up with us every time one
has faded out
Just another cigarette-stomped family
Another moment of silence
Another politician saying they can
“Make America great again”
Then calling for more gun rights
Violence stains our hands and field,
every wall that we see and touch
Guilt is a swarm of bees piercing our
skin whenever the background static starts to fade
Not realizing the sound was there until we turned off the lights
Not realizing we are alive until the
funeral bells are ringing.