devious licks

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