A thousand stark crosses

Plotted on a green hill

Once moving a thousand miles an hour

Now stand still.

At life’s bloody terminus

We are told they are the purest of all of us

The rolling front blending together

Police tape lines the yard

I walk past

Baby blue house in cookie-cutter neighborhood

I look down and it says welcome

I quickly step in and close the door

so the camera flashes don’t glimpse inside

Even if the school desks

Are perfectly aligned

And the chairs evenly spaced

And the walls precisely decorated

And the white boards

Sparkling white,

This is not my place.

The smile I wear is fake.

Constantly fighting to escape your

embrace,

The proof of my struggles remains on

my face.

Through tears in the dark I turn over

to see-

A stranger, a monster, lying next to me