Group Portrait with Bullet Wounds

Kids

ordinary teenaged

kids

Your first and

last thoughts

are,

” Why would anyone

shoot these

or any

kids?”

Patrick 22

The kids at Sandy Hook

man, that was too much

He broke down

Kids

He was 22 when it

happened, an adult….

Kids….

He belongs to a

mass Shooting Facebook

group

When he joined there

was a couple of hundred

There are a thousand now

growing all the time

Chance 15

The years since

the lower chest wound

the ones in the stomach

and below

have not been kind

to him

“They had to piece

my stomach and intestines

back together”

An assortment of tattoos

along the line

from mary jane leaves

in ascendance

to wherever the ones

we can’t see took him

“I own some firearms.

Well, I own one.

I owned seven at one point

I’m not scared

of guns.”

Missy 16

After the before school

prayer meeting

in the hall

the first shot

A guy head shot

Gone

He was like the class

clown and she kind of

liked him

Didn’t know how

a .22 bullet can bounce

around inside a body:

missing major arteries

organs

eventually lodging in her

spinal cord

All she lost was

walking.

She does stuff 

Refuses to let a wheelchair 

limit her:

rides a horse

climbs trees

water skis

It could have

been worse

Betina Lynn 18

After she was shot 

twice,

unable to seek shelter

under cafeteria table,

Betina decided to watch

what came down

They were going

to need witnesses

Everyone was surprised

to see the shooter at first

after all she’d been

expelled

No one knew

she’d killed her

parents  

Had come to

the school with guns

to take us out too