[Perfect Truth]

It’s easy to tell apart the shooting victims despite sincere sounding laughter and seemingly unmarked glances towards the anniversary posters. In the past week, each of them had perfected fake smiles, and lighthearted conversations that could be deemed Oscar worthy performances. All of us, but especially them, live and breathe the harmony of silence the way little children learn and thrive through a pattern. Every one of us who are moving uneasily through the halls on their way to class is a survivor. 1

Head up, my arms tight to my chest, I pass the echo of gunshots whose volume is intensified by simultaneous flashbacks shared by all of us walking by. My eyes glance over the words inscribed in the granite of the memorial. Words full of letters pretending to have emotion ; unnecessary words meant to help us remember when in reality, victim, survivor, bystander- none can, or will ever forget.2

We, the survivors, walk by and stare at the memorial, trapped in unrelenting crying and the relished guilt at being alive. Survivors who were shot walk by and unconsciously touch their arm, their stomach, or their back. They are feeling the echo of pain head down they walk by in groups striving to pretend the memorial out of their peripheral vision. Freshmen are the lucky ones- they try to be respectful and quiet but lacking the burden all the entire upper classes share, they forget sometimes. The memorial doesn’t silence them or the usual snickering. As they enter the courtyard, rumors flying from lip to ear on whispering wings as their feet pass what a year ago was both a library and a battleground.3

Like I said- it’s so easy to tell everyone apart. 4

With practiced masks of false calm, the teachers attempted to restore some kind of peace to the school. Like puzzle blocks pieced together slowly, balance unfolded back into the life of the school.5

Heart pounding I jog to English class, furtive glances at the clock reveal that the day isn’t over yet and I’m still in these halls. Slipping into the classroom, blinking while feigning blindness as five of them push silent sophomores into the wall, uttering guttural slurs and harsh curse words. 6

A perfect society functions because there is a certain calmness to it that just isn’t disrupted. It means acting to uphold the conventions of society rather than for what one wants- so my mouth stays clamped. Mention of what today stands for is empty from the agenda, not a cop out but at request of students, although tribute posters adorn the white wall. Rolling my eyes in my head- as the text wants the shooting victims to be known as heroes. 7

Writing the question on the board for discussion- “What does it mean to a community to speak up about a taboo? Is it right to influence so many lives that way?” Lia, the seventeen year old protagonist in last night’s homework reading, tells her story of abuse at the hands of an older boy when she was thirteen. Hands shoot up a part of a never-ending act- aching to regurgitate the right words. Memorized lines that even passionately defended by Milly Fortworth as she glorifies breaking taboos, they are still lines that if connected to her would be shot down instantaneously.8

“ She meant to help others like her- her intentions were good which makes her choice ethical- simply because her motive was to get the truth out there. Even if it influenced the people around her badly, she needed to do what was right for her and get it off her chest. Sometimes if you have a bad secret, you just need to tell it you know, or it eats you alive.”9

“Mill, that’s Bull- if she wanted to do good she would have just borne it. Granted its sad and a big deal but some things are best left silent. Some things are buried and should stay that way. Part of coexisting in society is letting things be taboo and letting them be unspoken. Some battles aren’t worth fighting if it’s going to disrupt the peace.,” retorted Arthur Plato. 10

“Yet some also are- its been proven that we learn by trial and error and obviously that it’s a taboo preventing this girl from getting rid of her pain- that means its not working hence error. Society tries things – trying to see what works. We need to learn the balance- so maybe for her to shout to everyone in front of everyone was too much but maybe her community was forbidding her from another forum for her anguish,” stated Aeris Otle, as she tossed her hair, proud of her intelligence. 11

Stringy hair spreading out around my folded arms, a halo created by midnight completion of history essays and too little hours in the night- my ears pick up the vibrations devoid of serious interest but overshadowed with unrelated anxiety. Bubbling in my chest, inflections of scorn at the hypocrisy ascend the knobby bones of my spine; earthquakes shatter my soul as each inflection bounces off each vertebra. Longing swarms my drained body- need to add another side to their discussion floods the fractures of my sanity, breaking all my levees and drowning my perception of social rules.12

“Learning is a process- it takes messing up to learn, and the only way to learn is to experience it, and her speaking out gives her community context and the ability to feel empathy for her as she talks about the burdens she carries. Look at the history of our country even- what sparked our country becoming free? A bunch of people decided it wasn’t working for them to be ruled by a king, and so they rebelled and redefined society, as they knew it. I guess if you really think about it, because the girl is speaking out- it’s opening the door for others to come forward which in the long run definitely benefits the common good, ” said Kylie Kant.13

“Even if we learn from experience and granted society could learn to handle rape differently but can you honestly say that was right?” Plato retorted. 14

Sticking her tongue out at him, a smile rises in dead eyes and while they argue my head spins. A couple of words and so many things would pour out- a flood of built up white walls that have mixed and changed colors- full of browns and reds and blacks and blues and greens- the color of forgetting- of delusions. I’m afraid- afraid that once I let it all go- once my mouth starts moving I won’t stop. Every image people have about me- each perception I’ve built up steadily of the person I wish I was would fall apart and be shattered into shards of delusional glass. 15

It’s so easy to be arguing about a girl whose struggle exists in the hundreds of other raped, but whose character is fictional. Words fly into each other’s mouths but its hypothetical- I doubt they mean what they say. It’s easy to defend her choice to speak up- but what about the breathing beating hearts here at Columbine. 16

What about the fifteen year olds slamming against walls whose faces show the beginning of the anger and dwarfing hopelessness that pushed triggers a year ago? Sophomores who would breathe that tormenting for two more years- who would feel only a tenth of the pain that had the power to push them off the edge but who would come to know that pain by senior year, undoubtedly. What about those whose scars were sometimes visible in a limp or a slower reflex but whose were mostly disguised- those that unleashed terror in the halls- a hazing that reeked of onion breath and curses?17

What about them? They were victim’s though- victims of two insane boys whose cruelty had given Columbine a spotlight- two boys who had planned a mass murder. Two boys who had been the sophomores slammed into walls, guys whose breaking had begun with third grade- pushed off play structures and designated targets in dodge ball.18

Retaining scars that ran deep, forked rivers burying into arroyos of constant anxiety and unbearable moments of memory- lying in omission, in a community’s struggle to forget about all the steps of harassment that were climbed in the journey toward last year’s today- doesn’t numb the pain of my scars. Yet, if my inflections of scorn scalded my tongue and burned their way through my throat- was I being fair to those who granted, had suffered a lot a year ago? Did they suffer enough that their guilt in handcrafting that tragedy was wiped clean, vanishing from their slate even as now they trained new victims to hate? Daring to use my voice- condemning those who are being honored as heroes is wrong on every level that our student body and community have raised us to act. Its not as if they are the only ones but they are the majority and no one says anything- no one dares. But according to the ethics being laid out in fancy words and scripted lines- speaking out, speaking for those whose voices are silenced everyday by a damaged community devoted to letting go of the past – completely right. 19

My eyes glancing on calligraphy stretching across wilted flower color green- guilt gnaws my thoughts- adding yet another sleepless nightmare colored burden for them to carry- Do I have the right to do that no matter how much in the long term it could forestall the tragedy known as ‘Columbine? If in five years, or ten- even if not tomorrow- a student reprimands their peers for bruises that have brown and blue petals, laced with insecurity and shame- my words will have balanced the scale for the crippled harmony their affect is about to have. 20

Maybe, a hundred early mornings waking up to never ending lectures, and high stress levels, from now- it will be worth it. Maybe someone won’t be faking sick, or hiding in classrooms till they are late for class terrified of the halls- maybe they will be grateful knowing passing periods aren’t another doorway into Hell. Tomorrow night counting the rainbows spread across my skin direct result of ‘tripping’ down stairs and ‘clumsily hitting doorknobs’ – regret will blossom in my head, but killed by winter frost of bold choices- its going to die because it will be done already.21

“What about Columbine? What about the stories silenced in the yanking of backpacks and legs trodden on by trampling teenagers because someone ‘bumped’ them? 22

Don’t they deserve better? What if – next October or March- someone walks into school unleashing a new wave of nightmares as they end their bullying once and for all? Is that when we stop, is that when we watch out for each other and start taking responsibility? 23

Everyone in this classroom is surviving with stitches tied into scabbed over pain that feel about to snap any moment- but what if last year- or the year before someone had said stop- had pulled their punch and shut their mouth? Do those kids have the right to speak out?”24

Shock imprints itself on thirty seventeen-year-old faces- glares are aimed and shot, slicing away my invisibility. My voice was quiet, but the words were loud.25

“But you aren’t one of t hem so you don’t,” Aeris mutters under her breath. 26

“Do you honestly think they will? With words? If you want to hear what they have to say- you don’t really have to look farther than the violence that’s become an unspoken rule to forget. That’s how people speak up after being torn apart and ripped into shreds of broken soul- they snap, they attack their bullies and everyone else who pretended to not see, anyone else who never defended them- and that anyone is everyone, all of us. 27

What they did was wrong but it didn’t come out of nowhere. Its not the gunshots, the screaming classmates, the agony stamped on the faces of writing bodies that everyone puts so much effort into forgetting- that you never will. Its why that happened, that’s being erased from our history, our minds.”28

“The mind and body are completely connected- you can’t just do something and not know what you are doing. It’s not possible to separate what the mind believes from how the body acts- it just isn’t. They are the same. The fact that you try to defend them is disgusting or try to justify- they knew exactly what they were doing. Kasha, I stood right there while he taunted Marissa and then killed her. My knees were soaked in her blood- I felt it when her heart stopped beating her. You can’t tell me we created them- they were mad, and able to kill us to get rid of their anger” Ariana Spinoza shot back at me. 29

Shattering eardrums and dissolving some tension- the bell rings but no one leaves. 30

“I have nightmares too- I live mine, while I’m awake and they invade my dreams if I sleep. Is your heart any less broken because you have people to shift all the blame to? Mine’s not- because I know even if not a single life should have been taken, even though no souls should have been murdered that day- each of us lied to ourselves. We held on to the power of a mob, losing our individualities and the ability to think for ourselves. Maybe not all of our direct actions, although plenty of us contributed but the silence of all who ever noticed, or saw the bullying- fueled their anger. You say we didn’t create them- but seeing the posters on the walls- the dead eyes, the chipped smiles- if you stop pretending, can you honestly say that they were wrong to be angry? That being right is worth more than eliminating the possibility of this happening again?31

Sighing with relief, I crumple on the desk- tears streaming down my face. Emotion staining my soul like the whiteboard covered in random scribbles, that needs to be erased, somehow.32