Stoneman Douglas High School
Parkland, Florida
February 14th, 2018
2:21 pm

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At first it sounds like a balloon pop,
the unintentional ones at birthday parties that make adults laugh and babies cry.
Suddenly the party is over and there is nothing left to celebrate.
All of the balloons must go, one by one, pop-pop-pop.

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It’s just me in this bathroom stall.
I romanticize how my hands feel pressed against the tin walls ‘protecting’ me,
and how gracefully the girl beside me and I pick our feet off the floor.
Our moves are congruent and instinctual like ballerinas in an empty theater.

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I recognize the sound of her urine steam,
and the way it stops so abruptly upon the second pop.
It’s like turning off the kitchen faucet,
because someone you love is shouting something important from the other room.

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I didn’t say ‘I love you’ this morning.
It didn’t even cross my mind.
I can think of a million things I didn’t say and things I might never will,
like ‘hey mom, I got an A on my test today.”

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Hey mom, 17 of my friends are dead today.