dear james poem (for batman shootings)

your school called again james

you went into class on halloween and failed the assignment of wear a costume to school

i think i know why

i believe you already wear masks on your face everytime you smile

i bet your skin feels as fake as plastic

so i have to ask

are you a mannequin?

put in different positions without control

and a certain quality

like you have a hole where your heart should be

but i know you arent the grinch

maybe you run around and hide your personality for others to find one day like a prize

but you aren’t the easter bunny

no

i see the problem

you are hollow

empty

you hung your morals like your enemies in your mind

dont let anyone see your drawings on that little notebook

you dont keep skeletons in your closet,

you take them to school with you

pretend they are friends

but i am worried

because the skeletons look scared to be around you

when it should be vice versa

but welcome to america

where we shove insecurity to the bottom

and blame mental illness on ADD

but some things just dont add up.

James, i heard you make weapons out of pencils

maybe you were just getting ready to fill others with lead

prepare for your destiny

you wear your future like a bullet proof vest

don’t let others close

maybe you ARE the grinch

because people are scared to touch you with a 39 1/2 foot pole

i wonder why your mom cries when she sees your picture

you smile like evil and good sit on your shoulders

but you dont exorcise your demons

you embrace them

and make them stronger

see you don’t exorcise them

you exercise them

make them sprint through your thoughts

and they run your brain. i wish i could see the future james

because on June 15th, 2005

The trilogy that would end with a kiss of death like you were making out with the grim reaper

released itself and spoke to your mind and made sense, but you agreed with the wrong side

screw the good side

if batman begins

you realised he must end as well

so you prepared yourself and trained like batman had personally taken your morality

and if you couldn’t get it back

might as well go down fighting.

You put punching gloves on like they were part of a work uniform

some wear suits

but you just wore that business casual you knew all too well

walked around like you were still uncomfortable in your own skin

i wonder if you asked yourself

how you got those scars where your heart used to be

I think you got used to living in nightmares like you were room mates with scarecrow

i bet you let your demons sign that lease.

wrote it off for protection when you picked up that semi-automatic and held a shotgun in your left and 2 pistols in your pockets

i hope you felt wrong

you could protect yourself from your nightmares now

but your only enemy was yourself

but the mirror showed you everyone but yourself

so you blamed them

and on July 18th 2008

you saw one other who lived through what you had seen every time you closed your eyelids

but the problem is the joker was a character that killed more than just box offices

see a man meant to simply act like a villain of your calibur couldn’t handle the darkness

i wonder if when you read the headlines

you didnt see a suicide

but rather a position opening and you were qualified better than anyone else

bought a ticket to your future

and you put your evil to work when you got the letter from your school asking you to kindly leave and seek help.

James,

I wish you had actually come to me

see this conversation could have been a session

but instead this is an obituary

you may be alive but everyone knows you are truly dead

worst part is we worry about zombies when they already walk among us

And on July 20th 2012

i wonder if you felt like when the movies ended

so did your life

so you fought it

by taking it out on the audience that laughed at the joker

and you assumed they were laughing at you

I wonder if you threw tear gas

so that they could cry like you did

you opened fire into a crowd of innocent but you saw life through a costume and so your eyes were like glasses that blocked morality instead of the sun

so you only saw enemies instead of people

killed 12 and injured so many more

James,

you were an all american boy

that saw blood on his flag instead of stripes,

or maybe you just saw the stars

you seem turned around and in your picture

you smile like you had just won the competition

but it was more like war

and i would say you were both sides

and so you lost

and the rest were K.I.A.

James,

You face 142 counts.

I want you to know

i didnt write this because I pity you james

i just want to know why you don’t pity yourself

because even monsters

admit they are monsters