Brutal Reminder (July 23, 2018)

What madness

Possesses a person

To murder others?

Question

Toronto is asking

After deadly night

In Canada's largest city.

Witnessing two victims

And shooter dead

From bullet wounds.

Additional grief

Twelve other victims

Scattered across

Numerous Toronto hospitals.

Has reason and logic fled?

Leaving us

Citizens of Toronto

Nothing more

Than killing brutes

With nihilistic tendency?

First thought is

Violence against those

Perceived to anger us

With real or imagined slight?

Turning upon ourselves

Like a rabid animal

That needs to be put down

For society's safety.

Have we desensitized

Ourselves

Regarding violence

Through video games

And other mass entertainment?

To these questions

I've no ready answers

Other than

Shedding sorrowful tears.

Wishing

I wasn't writing this

Or reading eyewitnesses’ accounts

Of last night tragedy.

As Toronto grieves

A community

Over this horror.

Therisa © 2018

Author’s note: Sunday, July 22, 2018, Toronto was brutally remained for the second time this year, that violence we associate with other parts of the world, can happen here. This is a safe area that I have travelled many times on transit, whether it’s the subway, streetcars or transit buses. Below are links about this tragedy:

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/07/23/theres-a-man-with-a-gun-madness-descends-upon-the-danforth.html

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/07/23/shooter-on-the-danforth-was-firing-like-someone-in-a-video-game-witness-says.html