Orlando

National broadcasts resound from every pocket and every wall
The light of one million screens sends messages via your pulse
Quickening with every word you scan
Apprehension shoots through your veins
You feel it in your temples as if your skull is a boiling kettle with the rhythm of a kick drum
The heat travels down
Into the tension of your furrowed brow
It doesn't stop there
The warm candlelight that moments ago filled your eyes has been replaced by wildfire
Casting shadows  underneath them, shades of mulberry in crescents
You're tired

You're tired of being atlas
You're tired of watching every grain of sand hit the hourglass floor in silence
You're not tired
You're exhausted
Your ribcage heaving from the laughter that should be shaking it
Your voice hoarse from the protests it should be joining in
Your joints aching from the miles upon miles upon miles (un)walked,
Alcohol etched cardboard reaching heights of lanterns  released in the names of those we've lost
The scene has been set, you can feel yourself in the heart of it all
A pulse unlike any you have felt before
But you look up from the articles and away from the screens and you find yourself
Walking to your next class, eyes averted
Sitting on the school bus, attention diverted
Alone in your room, beliefs reasserted
Surrounded by those who love you, completely deserted

Moments of silence are honorable for a reason
Silence does not mean "nothing"
Silence is power
Your heartbeat is silent yet it's motions are violent
In the wake of tragedy voices must be heard
but do not think for one second that yours should go unpreferred

50 lives lost in Orlando
In the wake of tragedy we must honor those fallen
Action must be taken, be it screamed or scrawled in
Notebooks hidden under pillows
Words of desperation and weapons of predation
Ironically stored in the very same location
In homes across America
It was once said that "in true love, you attain freedom"
United States "land of the free"
50 lives lost in Orlando
"Free", you tell me.