19 Babies
Dayniah Manderson - Reality Poets Choice Award - Poetry

19 babies died
19 bodies that had to be carried out
19 dead bodies of babies transported to a morgue
19 toe tags bearing 19 names; names belonging to babies
19 bodies without clothes
Bodies that reveal bullet holes
How many?
I don’t know, but I know that 19 babies died.

19 voices that families will never hear again
The laughter, the whining, the sound of crying
Have these loved ones run out of tears yet?
I don’t know, but I do know that 19 caskets are being prepared.
19 funerals will be held for the 19 babies that got killed.
19 little lifeless bodies will lay in pretty caskets as their loved ones hold each other.
Hold on for dear life.
Dear life, why do these things happen?
I don’t know, but I know for sure that it can’t continue like this.

There’s something scary about a school not being a safe haven.
Heaven help us; we clearly can’t help ourselves.
Helplessly those 19 children laid until life left their bodies only to be laid to rest.
19 bodies that will be used to build political platforms serving someone’s self-interest.
I’m interested in hearing how you politrickians plan to make this the last one, but more curious about how we
plan to get useless officials off their high seats.
These 19 babies, fresh outta high seat—
Mere children who had no choice but to cower as officers of the law protect parameters;
Preventing panicking parents from storming that school building amidst a hailstorm of bullets.
We go round in circles with our debates on gun rights and gun laws and concealing and carrying.
Someone had to carry those tiny bodies out with bullets lodged in extremities;
I’m sorry to be so extreme, but as a mom I feel it.
It’s so visceral and it shakes me to the bones that we all sit complicit and scrolling by.

Right now a father doesn’t believe he really has to say “bye” to that baby that motivated him to be a better man.
Still, we scroll and listen to sound bites,
Never looking at the beauty in these babies;
That might cause us to feel and so we scroll.
19 faces in squares plastered on social media as if there’s anything sociable about showcasing dead babies.
Desensitized and insensitive to a mother’s anguish
19 mothers who will see their baby’s face used as a tool to increase views.
None of this is new though I wish these killings would become old news.
When did we get so complacent with the latent evil that’s bubbling up from our numbness?

Preferring feeling nothing.
I mourn for the 19 babies that died in the classroom in that school.
I feel for the families of those babies who would give everything to hear, “5 more minutes, please”.
I hate what we’re being asked to accept.
Pretending that we don’t know why these things happen
It’s all in our minds, yes, our minds
Sick twisted waves of thoughts that crash into our respect for life;
When 19 babies’ bodies don’t shake us to our core,
We are no less dead than they are.