49 people have been shot and killed in orlando i am watching the news i am hearing them say shooting and florida and dead dead dead dead dead and body body body body i am hearing a man in a suit say tragedy and i am hearing a man in a tank top cry who had not had this happen until it happened to him and i am looking at a list of names drip down my tv screen i am pretending this does not remind me of blood i am pretending that i did not do the same thing as this this watching the news as it develops a story as it becomes realer and realer until this: a list of names a list of names on my tv screen but i was fifteen once and sitting in a different living room and i was watching the tv screen and the tv screen said shooting and the tv screen said florida and the tv screen said dead dead dead dead dead and body body body body and by 6pm it said their names and by 7pm i was at a vigil and i remember having woken up that morning at 7am to a world where this hadnt happened it hadn’t happened to me and how does that happen and how does the body figure it out on monday i sat in my desk and on tuesday i hid underneath it on monday bell meant leave on tuesday bell meant get down stay down don’t talk don’t move hide jesus christ hide on monday the shooter said sorry for having gum in his mouth on tuesday the shooter put a bullet in it on tuesday the shooter put five bullets in her on tuesday the shooter had ninety more on tuesday had ninety more on tuesday had ninety more on tuesday i went to the vigil and there was a man there praying there was a man there they were and are calling him a hero he ran out of the room he ran out of the room and left the door open for her and called the police he was having an affair with a sixteen year old he coached softball sometimes he was a hero they said i know it doesn’t matter unless i want it to but it’s difficult not to let it it’s difficult not to let it when i remember the shooter had a pet rabbit the shooter had a pet rabbit that the shooter loved very much and the shooter loved his sister very much and scrabble very much and the shooter wanted very much to be an actor and did improv on weekends i know this doesn’t matter unless i want it to but it’s difficult not to let it when everyone else won’t why do i feel responsible for remembering why do i see him walking all the time are ghosts people leftover in places or are ghosts people left over in people she does not haunt me but i see her in live oaks she does not haunt me but i remember her hands i see her hands in the pictures of victims on the tv screen they are not fifty they are twenty and thirty and they have hardly become become become i am watching the tv screen and i am understanding and not understanding what it means to not be dead at 15 and to not be dead at 16/17/18/19 i am understanding and not understanding the ways in which i am lucky i have no scars i just jump at loud noises and cant breathe sometimes but i am here i am alive i am trying to listen as my mother is telling me not to dwell but she listens anyway my best friend is saying it is hard to be alive but he is glad we are my girlfriend is saying what do you need but i need to be alive when this is only something that happened not happens but i am here i am alive but this keeps happening i am alive but this keeps happening happening happening and i know there is a hope somewhere but i lose it a little more with each name that drips drops into the ground how do we cope with losses that are not ours how can people have such a capacity to take how do we choose not to hate them or to hate them how do we reconcile the little things of living on a day like this how do we eat on a day like this or change our clothes how do i walk around in anything but a black dress on a day like this how much grief can the body hold before it spills i do not know i am watching abc i am wishing they gave enough time to each name not knowing if there is such thing as enough there isn’t is there but maybe just maybe a couple more seconds would be just a bit better
Katie Clark is a sophomore at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She was raised in Florida and part of her hasn’t left.