Tired of writing about mass shootings

By Hyphen Parent

I don’t want to write about shootings anymore.

I don’t want to “Look for the helpers.” I don’t want to try to find some evidence of a higher power in the bloodstains. I don’t want to discuss the validity of sending thoughts and prayers in the wake of yet another shooting. I don’t want to turn to religious texts to find words of wisdom or comfort. I don’t want to mark another set of yartzeits. I don’t want to have to include the victims of gun violence in our prayers for healing. I don’t want our outrage to be misconstrued as “politicizing. “

I don’t want the names of people with loves, dreams, families, and ambitions to be lined up and listed as “Victims.”  I don’t want to get into arguments where solutions are never actually considered. I don’t want to believe that we can only have circular arguments with no answers.

I don’t want gun violence to take one more life. I don’t want to write about shootings anymore.  The dead can’t hear us and the living refuse to.

Hyphen Parent

Dorothy-Ann Parent (better known as Hyphen) is a writer, a traditional Jew, a seeker of justice, a lover of stories and someone who’s best not left unattended in a bookshop or animal shelter.