By Alivia Vaughns I’m at a concert and the main singer comes on and talks about the next song and how they found a gun in their father’s sock drawer and I’m standing there in shock because apparently I’ve never listened closely to the lyrics though I should’ve known with a title like “Gun Song” … More Gun Song
This is the post excerpt. … More First blog post
by B. Fulton Jennes October 25, 2022 Warning: this poem contains graphic images of gun violence and the names of children and adults shot and killed in the Sandy Hook, Uvalde, Columbine, and Stoneman Douglas mass shootings. Because meat bleeds. Because we all know guns aren’t toys. Because the only difference between men and boys … More WHY I’LL NEVER OWN AN AR-15 EVEN THOUGH MIKE FLYNN’S “ARMY OF GOD” HAS SET ITS SIGHTS ON ME
by Richard Krawiec Somewhere past the middle of the video, 57 minutes in, maybe between bullet 79 and 80, perhaps after the 18th or 19th child screamed its death, the sheriff at the end of the hallway casually crossed to the hand sanitizer, gave it 3 squirts, lathered it around assiduously, long enough to hum … More Pilate at Uvalde
by Deborah Bogen Sorrow-hewed, this box was built to house my sister’s boney limbs–the bones of the box meant to shelter hers, but by and by even boxes decay, so the body that housed her once-hot heart will lay exposed. Returned to clay. The priest spoke words. A cold rain fell. All over the cemetery … More Cemetery
by Kathleen Aguero My grandson plucks a marigold poking through a neighbor’s white fence, crushes it between his fingers while I try to remember if it’s poisonous. Three days later he’s alive, so I cross the marigold off my list of potentially lethal flora toddlers might put in their mouths. So far, he has not … More At Sixteen Months: Brown & Gold
by Lynne Paris-Purtle On his first day of school, my son sat on the bus, his head stretched high, to peer out the grimy window. Around his neck hung a plastic tag with his name and address, but he couldn’t read, so he told the driver over and over who he was and where he … More The Killdeer
by Jen Schneider Fact: noun something known to be true an actual occurrence something with actual existence May 24, 2022 Fact: 27 school shootings this year. To Date 119 school shootings in the U.S. Since 2018 More than 200 mass shootings in the U.S. This Year To Date May 24th is the 144th day … More On Facts, the ABCs, and Lands of the Lost
by Claire Hsu Accomando At the White House briefingon the Corona Virus, the 45thPresident reads from a prepared text.A reporter notices he useda Sharpie pen to blacken “Corona,” and wrote over it“CHINESE Virus.” More than 3,000 hate incidentstarget Asians betweenMarch 16, 2020andMarch 16, 2021. Today on my walk, a cascadeof lavender lanterns dangle—face down—over a … More Black Marker
By M. Padgen-Michna
She drifted on a sea of dreams
wearing a new purple backpack, … More Chicago Stories
Listen to Pittsburgh singer-songwriter Lindsay Dragan’s “Everywhere,” a song written following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Scho … More Lindsay Dragan
By Lisa Norris. Come on, they pleaded. Let us go out. We’ll be fine. No one’s going to shoot us. We want to see what’s going on. … More That Fall Day
Bullets into Bells 