Tears burn like acid for angels we hardly know by name.
Pretenders appear placid; strong sympathetics flush lunch down drains.
Mothers awake from their sleep while teenagers delineate escape routes.
And now “Why” is a question neither twenty parents nor America will ever figure out.

Why was it okay to strip Daniel from his ocean waves?
Substitute blood for finger paints
While every child in America wonders if they’ll get shot in school the next day.

When did it become okay two weeks before Christmas, to bury babies in black?
Please explain to me how you tell Dylan’s 8 year old brother his best friend won’t be coming back?

When did it become okay for a teacher to die with a student in her arms?
Make a classroom a war scene
while seven students hide in the closet’s dark.

When did it become okay to have Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Dylan, Madeleine, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, Ana, James, Grace, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Avielle, Benjamin, Allison, Dawn, Anne Marie, Mary, Lauren, Rachel and Victoria to have their innocence and lives taken away?

It’s not alright and not even close to okay.