POETRY PROMPT: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

You've been smacking me EVERY day for as long as I can remember. 

I do nothing. 

I move. 

I stay out of your way. 

I don't fight back. 

I forgive. 

I try to make sense of it; understand it; excuse it; bind up my wounds, ice my bruises, and keep smiling. 

You KEEP smacking me! 

I look forward to the day when you stop smacking me, and I'll finally stop saying "ouch" and crying all the doggone time. 

One day, I realize that I will NOT stop crying and being in pain until I pick up a 2"x4' and clock you upside the head. 

Then, because you don't like pain or crying--especially not by MY hand, you get mad and call ME violent! 

HUH? 

Why can't you just stop smacking me when I ask you to? 

Why can't you acknowledge that you're hurting me? 

Why won't you just leave me alone? 

Is my mere EXISTENCE bothering you that much? 

Is it because you think you have a RIGHT to smack me, because you think you're superior to me, and I should just take it? 

Is it SPORT for you to harm me? 
Are you afraid that one day I'm going to get up enough nerve to knock the stew out of you so you can see how it feels? 

Are you sensing the power of my long delayed punch? 

Is THAT why you're afraid now? 

Are you realizing that at some point, I'm going to say, "Enough is enough" just like YOU would? 

Are you afraid that you have gone too far and DESERVE what's coming to you?

 
Don't EVER be surprised when your victim snaps and stops the fight YOU started.

What we are taught and what we experience, shapes us. 

Now we have a name.  

The deceased shooter was trained to fight the enemy; trained to defend his life. 

In his own country, in spite of his service to it; in spite of his good deeds, clean record, and academic achievement, HE was, like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, brothers, uncles, and male cousins, the perceived threat. 

The monster. 

The brut. 

The thug. 

He saw those who looked like him picked off by those in authority, one by one, with no repercussion. 

He saw men, who looked like him, lose their lives unnecessarily; left to bleed in the streets like slaughtered hogs. 

What did that do to him? Did he wonder when he would be next? 

Who did he come to see as his real enemy? 

Men in Afghanistan who'd NEVER done anything to oppress him? Who did this soldier's perplexed, exhausted mind tell him he had to fight? 

When he devised a strategy, reached for his weapon,  and headed out into the streets, where did he think he was? 

Did he tell himself that his enemy was closer than he thought, armed, wearing a uniform, and bearing legal authority to kill him at whim? 

Is it a wonder he snapped?

Is America, with its long, shameful affinity to #racism and oppression spreading, not democracy, but denial and mental illness?

God help us. 

I know you do, but a little more help, please.