Yearly Curse

[c5]

Just for today, every year.
Hardly payback. Hardly justice.
They are never going to get that,
Not in this lifetime, anyway.
This festering, rotten system has seen to that.

So I settle for this:
Everyone who had a hand on that trigger:
the gunman, his back up, the owner of the gun,
And the woman behind this event,
Today, every year, I will them to stop in their tracks,
Drop their pens,
                    knives,
                            forks,
                                    guns,
Take a day off from the rest of their lives,
And be:

• The first-born, caught in shattered glass, bullets and noise, as his mother slumps dead in his wounded arms.
• The sister, forgetting her own safety and seld, carrying the dead and bloodied body away from the scene, praying for a miracle, knowing it's no good.
• The second son, running miles and miles on stilletos to the unacceptable but inevitable fact: his mother is dead.
• The daughter, waking up to a phonecall from hell, a frantic "Someone shot mom."
• And another, an ocean away, on her knees, hoping for a god, a devil, something to beg to make this nightmare go away and please, please, please just let her mom be OK.

I will them to become everyone and anyone who loved the woman they eliminated.

I will their stomachs to turn hollow and cold,
    Their breaths to catch at the razor sharp pain in their chest,
       Their weakened knees to fall to the ground
          Their bodily functions to stop making sense
             Their gag reflexes to work overtime
                Their eyes to bleed with tears peppered with broken glass
                    Their brains to short-circuit
                       Their souls to fall into barren waste
                          Their hearts to break,
At the unimaginable grief of losing a mother
                                                             sister
                                                                friend
                                                                   love of one's life
                                                                     reason for living.

I will them to remember today, four years ago,
Every year.