BoatsA Poem by Marie AnzaloneI. Don’t make a fuss, you say- don’t disrupt anything you are too young and inexperienced to understand. Whatever you do, do not rock any boats. Boats are meant to be kept tied to shores, and social studies teachers should just carry more guns. This has nothing to do with the kids. It never did. We will put a combat rifle in the hands of a poor 18-year-old kid and tell her to die for our economic freedom to exploit whomever we want; but a 15-year-old who watched his classmates die in a pool of blood in front of him is just an actor. Even if he tells the truth, he is after all only a naïve rocker of boats.
II. You would say, now is not a good time to get angry. Anger is bad. Blood and death are too adult and uncomfortable, anyway, for them to think about. Shouldn’t they be out shopping for a new case for their iPhone? You think they do not hear you, but they do, they do. They hear what you are not saying, too. They should just sit down, shut up, let someone else do the thinking for them. They should understand all we have sacrificed for them, and be grateful for the chance to live in that place that is never quite day yet not exactly night. They should die, if that is what their country calls upon them to do today, in-between standardized testing and learning a little about STDs and the dirtiness of the human body.
III. You ridicule their empathy. You mock their pain. You call their grief, unearned. They, who sat by phones and Facebook, waiting to hear if their little sister, who they forgot to hug goodbye this morning, will make it out alive. The bullets are coming through the walls, she wrote. I am so scared. They, who witnessed first hand what they will never show you on the news- those details. What a high caliber round does to a child’s liver at close range. Trust me, they know what they are talking about. They are not delusional. They are angry. With you. With me, too. The answer you, say, is more access to killing- it is not listening to the kids. Or their teachers.
IV. There is dirty anger, that blames. That discredits. That wants to wound, revenge. Aggravate. That belittles. That says, I will make you so sorry, you ever crossed me. Ask them. They can tell you who tomorrow may call himself an Avenger. Rock that boat. It would have drowned them anyway. Our anger is clean, they say. It is earned. It calls you to action, it calls on us to all pay a little more attention. It asks for solutions. It does not ask why. It lives side by side with the vulnerable.
V. In the US, they watch their classmates and mentors die. In Bolivia, they watch their cultures die. In Syria, they watch their neighbors die. In Afghanistan, they watch their women die. In Brazil, they watch their ecosystems die. Here, they watch their hopes and neighborhoods, die.
VI. Worldwide, young people just like them, are the ones asking the questions, we are afraid to. How much does a high-caliber rifle cost they ask, and why is it worth more, than me? If you cannot respect their questions, and be part of the solutions they deserve, then for Heaven’s sake, get the hell out of their way. You might call me naïve, for listening to the young. Yet I would point out, at least they have something worth listening to. Boats were built to be sailed, and they only show of what they are made, when they are rocked. Our kids do not want to sit still any more. They do not want to shut up, any longer. They certainly do not want, any more, to die.
© 2018 Marie AnzaloneAuthor's Note
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Added on February 27, 2018Last Updated on February 28, 2018 AuthorMarie AnzaloneXecaracoj, Quetzaltenango, GuatemalaAboutBilingual (English and Spanish) poet, essayist, novelist, grant writer, editor, and technical writer working in Central America. "A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to ta.. more..Writing
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