Poem by T. D. Roberson (TW)

Travis D. Roberson grew up in Florida. Now settled in Queens, he lives with his wife and dog. His work appears in Pithead Chapel, Juked, Maudlin House, and a number of other places. Discover more of his work at www.travisdroberson.com

[Content Warning: Gun Violence]

June 12, 2023

It’d feel disingenuous to write this on any day but June 12th so here I am writing it 7 years after 49 people were murdered in Orlando, Florida

Years ago I had the intention of penning an essay about my hometown becoming the site of the deadliest mass shooting in US history but by the time I felt prepared to put the words down a man in Las Vegas massacred 60 people from his hotel room

You have to be quick these days if you want to capitalize on tragedy and I hate writing this but it stands to reason that one day some other person will surpass the body count in Las Vegas

The Pulse shooting is still the deadliest attack against LGBTQ+ folks
surpassing the Upstairs Lounge Fire when a phantom set fire to a gay bar in New Orleans and killed 32

And at the time Pulse was the deadliest act of terrorism in the United States since September 11th
when religious fanatics piloted airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
taking almost 3,000 lives including their own and 15 years before Pulse ever happened I sat in a classroom near the same city that would one day lose 49 of its residents too afraid to ask what the World Trade Center was

And when Pulse happens and I read about the dead two days later I will see the image of a young man my own age placing flowers outside the site of the killing and the news article will identify him as Joshua and I will remember all the years we went to school together and that time in 8th grade when he walked into 6th period and I shouted JOSH IS A FAG through cupped hands and I tell myself now as I told myself then that I didn’t mean anything by it

we called each other fag back in those days as a general insult
trying to release myself from my own acts of violence

And I think about those three letters sharpened like the bullets emptied weekly into classrooms and how they never meant anything innocent and how the kids who used it on me meant to hurt me and weaken me and how I used it in the same way against Joshua and for that I don’t seek amnesty

Kids will certainly do bad things and kids will be kids and kids will be cruel and kids will wake up in America and go to sleep prematurely as numbers written in poems

There’s 49 dead in Orlando and there’s 60 dead in Las Vegas and 17 in Parkland and 8 in Atlanta and 7 in Nashville and yes I had to look those up because I can’t even remember anymore

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