there are no easy answers
but who is asking–
when no one is blamed
but the shooter
we can arm or disarm
we can reify
& never rectify
the flaw in the machine

it’s not the absence of God
in our schools–
our schools are full of gods.
It’s conscience we’re lacking,
all of us jaded & bloated in
humanity so big we can’t see the other
as a we, as an I in different skin;

until we say us
instead of society, instead of them,
instead of the other
until we say me
& own this thing

that makes saints or monsters
giving some too much

& others too little
of what makes us us

we are in no way through this