"My Arsenal" a poem about gun violence
Oct 23, 2019
Story
Every 16 hrs a woman is shot and killed by an intimate partner in the United States. Gun violence has been deemed a "public health crisis" by the American Medical Association. America needs better research into gun safety and violence in order to make better gun policies to prevent this growing crisis. Every day the news is filled with stories of gun violence and mass shootings. I feel helpless. This poem was my attempt to vocalize that feeling and sense of urgency.
"My Arsenal" by Asherah
Anger is my arsenal
This pen my lethal weapon
As I raise my voice to fight
This political armageddon.
A war wrought with destruction
Of innocent observers
Saving victims of this violence
With verbal life-preservers.
It’s all I have to offer
It’s all I have to give.
These words
This poem
My honesty
In hopes that we may live
Free of bloodied bullets
And of suffocating fear
Unsure what lies ahead
Our future is unclear.
Without new regulations
To fix this thriving issue
Deaths from growing gun violence
Will exponentially continue
My scribbles scream for help
Its frantic pleas forsaken
Trusting you to keep us safe
We were thoroughly mistaken.
This poem is dedicated to every politician that has refused to pass responsible gun legislation and is a voice for those who will die in the days ahead because of our leaders incompetence, willful ignorance, and greed. The National Rifle Association spent almost half a BILLION dollars in the 2016 election to elect pro-gun politicians into office. Meanwhile...women, children, students, and thousands of innocent lives are taken each year by gun violence.