DIY – The Poetry Marathon

DIY

The parent of one of my 10th grade students tagged me in a post

about a Do-It-Yourself solution in case of an active shooter.

Supply List 1

The teacher in the post said that she looked all over for something

to keep the students and her safe.

She found her solution at Home Depot,

a business that got an F rating in 2019 for

supplying money to Congressional recipients of NRA dollars.

Supply List 2

For this DIY project, the wire rope loops like a noose around the dummy door lever.

(The dummy lever is one inch away from a glass panel.)

The other loop joins the carabiner that is

hooked to the wall mount.

(Don’t ask for permission to drill into the wall.

You’re doing it for the kids.

You’re doing it so that you all can make it home.)

Supply List 3

I looked through videos that showed what an AR-15 can do to structures.

There is a guy who shows five different types of barriers

that AR-15 bullets can penetrate.

I paid special attention to the one that looks like a wooden door and the cinder block wall.

(The trainer noted that the cinder blocks used in schools like mine were hollow.)

The bullets designed for the AR-15 are created to tumble when they make contact with flesh.

They rip at a velocity of around 3000 feet per second as they

plunge through the soft tissue.

They destroy all of the organs in the regions they hit.

They are not the types for bullets that usually lodge in the human body like they would a wall.

They make grand exits.

Supply List 4

The magazine of an AR-15 can hold 30 rounds.

The class that the parent’s child was in had 28 students in it.

If we were in Uvalde, no one would have escaped the room alive.

Supply List 5

I don’t respond to the post.

Don’t know how to tell him that it will never work.

Don’t know how to tell him that I can’t save his son.

Even if I lay my body on his,

The bullets will still get through.

It won’t be enough that I tried.

It won’t be enough that I did it myself.