When I was a little girl, I heard of high school boys who went to lunch, opened their lunch boxes to pull out AK 47s so the kid who forgot his lunch money could have bullets forced fed into his stomach

When I was a little girl, I heard of grown men mistaking a commercial airplane for paper and accidentally throwing it into the eye of Manhattan so the man who hadn’t looked up from his desk all morning could see the explosion out his World Trade window

When I was a little girl, I heard a woman forgot her little boys were in the backseat, but she remembered to leave the windows down making sure they could breathe in lake water when she released the parking brake

When I was a little girl, I heard some numbers went missing making the nation think computers would take over the world so America could live out its favorite sci-fi flick

When I was a little girl, I heard kids weren’t allowed to eat their fruits and vegetables because someone’s father had misplaced his razors in an apple core instead of in his medicine cabinet

Now that I’m older, I hear of school boys who go to their rooms to open their dresser drawers and pull out .28-calibers to lull the demons who couldn’t stop screaming hate with a mother’s scream born of suicidal discovery

Now that I’m older, I hear of grown men mistaking women for property and throwing stones in their eyes while the world turns deaf ear to their cries

Now that I’m older, I hear of a mother freed from a state penitentiary so her 4-year-old daughter’s grave can be used as a platform to fame

Now that I’m older, I hear some humanity went missing when the little girl logs on to hatred hidden behind anonymous faces and wall posts

Now that I’m older, I hear kids still aren’t allowed to eat their fruits and vegetables because someone’s father can’t find his razor blades in the medicine cabinet

Now that I’m older, kids know better than to hide razors in apple cores

They hide them so deep in their wrists that no one ever bothers to question why their long sleeves are stained with blood

The world needs to become older now, to see it’s filled with horror movies too gut-wrenching for an R-rating

Every tragedy is worth a headline even if it’s not worth the ink in your editor’s opinion

Write it anyway.