Sanctuary

No more desks

to hide beneath.

Only church pews,

polished wood,

knees pressed to linoleum,

children whispering

(heads bowed, hands clasped)

praying

to a God who does not answer.

A child stands

before a bullet—

not in defiance,

but because

there is nowhere else

left to be.

Playground virtues:

a trembling hand

on a friend’s shoulder,

a body offered as shield,

as sacrifice,

beneath desks

that cannot save.

Bullets—real this time—

pierce backpacks.

Day dream turns nightmare.

Muzzle flash,

hymn collapsing,

gunfire erupting.

And still—

we pledge:

land of the free,

home of the brave—

as if bravery

is not love,

but a blood rite,

paid in lockdown drills,

in final texts,

last goodbyes

to mothers waiting

outside the tape,

hearts split open

by bargains made at dawn—

the kiss goodbye,

the hug at the door,

before the world tilted

and nothing

was ever the same.

Death is now curriculum.

Wisdom too terrible

to endure.

Lessons

no one asked to learn.

Yet we hand our children

textbooks and trauma.

Ask them to recite

the pledge,

to practice

being small,

silent,

spared.

And we pray—

God, how we pray—

for a hero to rise

from locked doors

and loaded silence.

While our government

kneels to

its chosen altar:

a rifle raised,

a hymn of profit,

a nation baptized

again and again

in its children’s blood.

The price of freedom

measured in bodies,

in a world

fallen off its axis.