Blood in the Snow, a campus shooting survivor reflects

[on a bitterly cold and snowy February 14, 2008, a former graduate student of Northern Illinois University came on to the DeKalb campus armed with guns, entered a large classroom in Cole Hall and shot and killed five students and injured sixteen others. He then turned the gun on himself.]  

* * * 
Your feet crunched 
across the frozen grounds
of this alma mater
carrying cold steel 
in the pockets of an overcoat
like the metal surrounding your heart 

blood spurts of 
"anger repressed"
words to describe in neutral terms

"clinically depressed"

a mad man 'or just a "mad" young man

without a voice

I think of the seconds before
the crunch of your boots across
the cold pavement

did you sweat in anticipation
did you shed a tear in the seconds
before turning the trigger on yourself? 

Did you have a moment of indecision
vacillation
contemplation
a chat with someone
anyone
an admission 

I'm crazy with this feeling
and this is what I want to do...
and I mean it...

White skin on the white snow 
walked into a room full of the 
coats of many colors
worn in the season before spring

everyone sat waiting for the T.A.
as you walked in and lay your broken
spirit on the floor
gently or madly
closing the door
and opening the case in which
the weapon of mass destruction lay
nesting and ready for its moment 
of precision
crafted in a shop somewhere 
far away
but brought to this moment
this insane crazed moment
as you bent down 
to pick it up 
because your soul had already been 
left at home
crushed or barely surviving
on the breath of fury
which now jumped from behind
the metal door around your pumping heart
pushed the muscle in the hand
that now aimed and opened fire
once, twice, more, the 
girls and boys 
gathered 
waiting
now dropping 
like targets at a range
or birds in the sky
their shocked spirits
floating across the whiteness of the 
outside snow which they too
had walked that day as you
winter boots on the grounds 
of your alma mater
who now must embrace
all of her children in a deeply sorrowful
gesture of 
community grief
rage filled tears
and love.