Run As Fast As You Can

I keep turning off the television and Facebook and Twitter, trying to not know about those babies being buried in Connecticut, but I can’t. I feel consumed in guilt and turn it all back on, and try to catch up as fast as I can, saying I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I am so so sorry every time that father talks about his daughter in present and past tense at the same time.

I can’t close my eyes to it – I keep thinking that if I had been in the shoes of those mothers, I would never let anyone close their eyes to anything ever again. That’s too much pain for anyone to bear alone – I feel like I have some kind of obligation to try to share the hurt. I don’t know any of the moms or dads that lost their babies to this attack, but I feel like I have been donating half of my heart to them since Friday morning.

It is hard to look at our kids and know what to tell them. Bella came home yesterday wanting to know why – why did he do that? Was he mad at someone? She wanted to know how – how was he sick in his mind? What do people look like when they are that kind of sick in their mind? What was he wearing? Where was his mom the whole time?

It is impossible to find the right words or know which ones not to use.

She said if a gun man comes into my classroom, I am going to run around, as fast as I can, because it is hard to hit a moving target and she was proud of her plan. This goes down in her list of things she knows now, along with long division and the order of the colors of the rainbow. She said boys in her classroom said they wouldrush at the gun man and take him down and save everyone and be heros. It was hard to hide the horror I felt when I realized that my brain was saying while they are being heros, you run around as fast as you can, because moving targets are harder to hit. 

Someone on the news, when asked how we send our kids back to school without being afraid, said “We just take a deep breath and a leap of faith and hope for the best – we have to believe everything is going to be alright”. That’s the national answer. That’s the instructions we have been given. So that’s what I’ve been doing.

Today is Tuesday, only the second day back to school since it happened, and I sent my babies out the door again this morning, like I am supposed to. “Have a good day! Don’t lose your jacket! I love you!” ..run as fast as you can, please come home, be nice to everyone you see, please come home, please come home over and over till they come back home.

Wear Me Down

my edges get ripped off so often i forget how i fit back together
but i tape me back up and fold under the ink spots and add some new glue
so that you and you and you don’t see it wear me down.

my backbone gets scraped and skinned and it turns in ways it shouldn't
and my hands get so shaky they break things they said they wouldn't
but i run and run and run so that you wont see it wear me down.

and i sing and i play
sunshine songs and reindeer games
so that you and you and you and you will see me smile.

and i hide the things that crack me open and erase the marks that bleed
and bandage the spots that keep in the ugly
so that you and you and you and you wont see them wear me down.