To Label Something as Tragic

“what are we supposed to do?”
“about the death?”
“about the unbearable hate? where do we even begin?”
“I know, this is really bad, three in one week.”
“it’s not even a record.”
“yeah.
San Bernadino was 14 and 22
Newtown was 27 and 1
Aurora was 12 and 58
Washington was 12 and 3
Orlando was 50 and 53
those are just some of the bad ones.”
“and only from the past couple years.”
“since 2012.”
“where is it all supposed to bring us to?”
“not sure.
seems to do an awful good job at making us pick sides
on gun control, border laws, political parties,
it does a good job at pushing us apart.”
“You’d think that…”
“careful.”
“what?”
“you’re going to offend them.”
“who?”
“the ones reading this poem.”
“I’m confused now.”
“nevermind, I guess it’s going to have to happen eventually.”
“Stop being weird, man.”
“you were saying…”
“I was saying: You’d think that all of this tragic death would bring people
closer and unite them under a cause, right? Because, and please stop me if you
disagree, it shouldn’t be about party names, political affiliation, your own
personal agenda that everyone on the internet seems to have [although I do see how sharing my opinion of this with you seems like a personal agenda and that
could be deemed hypocritical but hey, fuck it], it should be about uniting as
human beings and realizing that somehow we need to stop fighting each other with
fear and undeniable hatred.”
“You’d think that wouldn’t you…”