2018

Silence can be dangerous. 

Silence can also provide space to think and to engage the mind. 

Silence can be deafening.

In a sound-deprived space, a person’s heartbeat can sound like a rhythm of bombs dropping. It can cause hysteria and panic to hear only the sound of blood rushing through veins. 

Silence can keep the peace or start a war. Silence is powerful. 

I wish she were here but she had to die. 
Everyone must, but when?

“Forever and a day” was a phrase my mother used to describe what it felt like to wait. How long is too long to wait? It has less to do with duration and more so refers to the possibility of a permanent state of waiting. A slowing down of time. A tension that builds and only releases when the waiting is stopped. But if something goes on forever and a day... then it never ends.  Maybe that is what death is like. Maybe when you die, it feels like waiting. 

What does it feel like waiting to die? To know it’s coming soon but to not know exactly when? It must be torture. It must be terrifying. It must feel like “forever and a day”. 

How long does it take to kill 17 people with an AR 15?

"The shooting lasted six minutes,[28] after which Cruz dropped his rifle on the 3rd floor of the building and left the scene by blending in with fleeing students. He walked to a Walmart, where he purchased a soda at its Subway restaurant. He then walked to a McDonald's and lingered before leaving on foot at 3:01 p.m.[6] At about 3:40 p.m., he was stopped by police in the Wyndham Lakes neighborhood of Coral Springs, 2 miles (3.2 km) from the school, and arrested without incident.[29][27][1][30] He was taken to a hospital emergency room with "labored breathing".[note 4] After 40 minutes, he was released back into police custody and booked into the Broward County Jail."


How long is too long? How long does it take to die?
It took Matthew several days. I was too young to understand. 
Something fractured in her that day and she never got over it.

Now that I’m older I understand. 

Why couldn’t I have been older then? I had to wait.

I need to write it before I forget. I am already starting to forget. I need to remember. I need to write it down. I’m older now.

How long is 6 minutes?
What does it feel like? What did they see? 
What did they hear? 

I thought of blood. Diluted. Orangy red. Suspended in water. Spotting.
The still, the quiet, the suffocating feeling of being underwater - for too long.