there was a lockdown at my daughter's school this week not a drill a real one i didn't check my email because i was making candles when she came home she was excited and told me how the school had to shut down because all the kids were stealing things from the school because of some tik tok video they could only use the staff bathroom because all the kids were stealing giant toilet paper rolls i would find out later it was because a parent called 911 because they heard some students had weapons the middle school where my daughter was and the neighboring high school were both in lockdown in the news it said six boys were questioned three at the high school three at the middle school they had plans but there was no other information last year i had a nightmare where there was a shooting at her school and i couldn't find her i forgot about the nightmare until yesterday i didn't know her teachers had told her something different than the email sent to parents so i read her the email and she was shocked that night when she couldn't sleep i pretended it was just because she had drank a glass of iced tea too much caffeine but we both knew better we watched this movie she picked out called eighth grade and she didn't want me to leave the room to load the dishwasher i looked away when the kids on the screen were doing the lockdown a man holding a gun pointed at the students and said you're dead you're dead a reenactment to keep them safe they don't do that at her school we both noticed this while i found invisible crumbs off the table to clean and wondered why her teachers had told her it was a hoax the six boys that were questioned will probably be back at school next week in my nightmare she hid in the gym under the bleachers it was in december she sang christmas songs in her mind to drown out the gunshots in my nightmare the dead told me where to find her i was standing in the gym dead bodies all around me i remember telling her when she was in kindergarten to hide it had been her first lockdown and it shook her up she was tiny then and is still the smallest in her class i told her to find where no one else can fit and to stay there quiet until the police call out in my nightmare she did what i had told her but now she doesn't listen to me my nightmare is happening now this world we live in is made up of half-truths no one wants to feel pain to know the truth the truth for me is that this week my daughter's school was in lockdown because 6 boys might shoot up two schools and it was downplayed as a tik tok prank the police are feigning ignorance the news is a half truth protecting us from the information we need to know because they don't know what to do and can't admit that they are just protecting themselves our children are being sacrificed their futures are up in the air with the incomplete thoughts of the incompetent school shootings and covid have a lot in common we don't know how to deal with it so we make our kids deal with it send them to the thick of it while we pretend someone higher up knows what they are doing they don't so this shit will keep happening until we stop it or until the world ends
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9/19/2021 02:47:21 am
And here you present The truth, and sublimely went exactly where I had hoped it would. I felt the similarities of tbe Covid about three quarters through, with the downplaying and lies. Amazing piece. Sad really, with so many words that people write, they don't say anything. You Did!!!!! You Do!!! I think this is your most powerful piece to date
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AuthorMichelle Tinklepaugh Archives
June 2023
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