The Virginia Tech Horror

I want to start this off by saying that my thoughts and prayers go out to those families and friends of the victims at Virginia Tech. I debated as to whether or not I should comment on this horrible event, but my heart decided for me. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t watch the news much, because I take on the pain of the world and absorb it like a sponge. I cry whenever I do watch a newscast, because it pains me to see what humans are capable of doing to one another. Therefore, it goes without saying that this tragedy has broken my heart. I can’t avoid it; it’s everywhere, so I find myself crying silent tears for all that pain that’s been caused.

Unfortunately, when an event such as this happens, it opens the floodgates for the media whores to distort it, exploit it, and make a circus of it. Already we have scientology groups calling for the shooter’s blood to be tested for medications, so they can use this to further their own agenda against medicine. Already we have South Korea jumping up to apologize, and ask that we don’t blame their country, for the actions of ONE individual who happens to be of South Korean descent…but has lived here since 1992, in fear that we jump on the racial divide theory we so love discuss. Already we cannot get away from the stories of how the school handled the shootings badly, how his writings raised red flags, how he was sent to counseling…already it is a media feeding frenzy, and already I am disgusted.

THIS is a horrible tragedy. Way too many lives were lost because one individual lost his mind and did a terrible thing. I’m sure more will come out about his state of mind, about warning signs, about missed signals. I’m sure someone will point the finger at someone else, we’ll play the blame game, we’ll analyze, we’ll study, we’ll research. But the real tragedy is that we won’t get anywhere with any of it, and it will happen again in the future. Blame, research, medication…these are all just words. Violence, hatred, desperation…these exist daily, how will we ever eradicate them when we sensationalize them. Unfortunately for all of us, we don’t quite understand the human mind just yet, and why it is capable of inflicting such pain. We can’t control what we don’t know. How could anyone know that a question mark on an attendance sheet would be an indication of a murderer?

The more I read or hear about this tragedy, the more my heart breaks. Nothing like this ever makes sense. How could it? How could he?

It is usually in the midst of horrors I can't wrap my brain about, that I "write"...I don't know (or care) if it's any good, but it had to get out, so here's something I wrote in the midst of all this...

?

It seems you had shut out the world
Long before you gave up on life
They say you stopped participating
Didn’t speak to anyone
But then why take them with you?
What had they done to you
That made their last breath yours to decide?
And who made you God to determine that it was their time?
Who knows what was going through your
“Eerily calm” mind as you pulled that trigger
Again and again
Could you have been helped, or stopped
Before this tragedy
Or if you were just always going to explode,
No matter what anyone did
They say you were a loner
You kept to yourself
Didn’t respond when spoken to
But does that then turn you into a victim
Excuse your horrific actions
Were you crying out for help
I don’t see it that way
I can’t see it that way
Because you had choices
There is always a choice
And you calculated
You planned
You scratched the fucking serial numbers off the guns
You knew what you were doing
And you had no right

I cry for them…
But I can’t find sympathy for you…