He had hand written it
In his diary
During the months
Of preparation.
Every word,
Every detail,
Every move.
He had recorded it
For posterity
On the camcorder
That they would find
In his bedroom
In the bottom drawer
Of his bureau.
And maybe,
They would find what was left
Of the stuff he had purchased
And cached away
In the crawl space
In the attic
Behind the trunks
And the suitcases.
Then, they would know
How it felt
When the girls laughed
At his pimples,
And when the boys called him names
And when no one would sit at his table
During lunch period.
Then, they would see why
He had to do what he did--To take away the pain
And to cancel out the noise in his ears
With the beautiful sound
Of the cartridges
Exploding again and again
In the school cafeteria.
Madelyn D. Kamen is a free-lance writer who has published short stories,poems, and essays in local and national magazines and online. Prior toestablishing a document development company, she was an associate deanand professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center atHouston. She was a graduate of the Leadership Texas Class of 1992 and was listedin Marquis "Who's Who in the Southwest" and "Who's Who in America".She is currently working on an anthology of short stories about everydaylife.
