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A response to the events in Colorado.

I spent five years in hell.
Five years of being judged "unfit"
Five years of being put through daily torture
Five years of being made to fear
For my own sanity
Five years of being taught
How to hate
How to loathe
How to abhor
What to hate
What to loathe
What to abhor
And to know that the hatred
The loathing
And the abhorrence
Should all wear my name and face.

Even now
When faced with the memory of those five years
I wish I could turn back the clock
I wish I could alter the way things were
I wish I could free myself.

So when I heard of the shootings
And of the reasons for them
I wasn't surprised.
I doubt many people were.

Those who wear the face of surprise
Are those who handed out those lessons
In their own time. To them
The shock of realising
That what they were doing
Was harmful.
That it wasn't just
Children playing.
But rather it was adults, enjoying their last chance
Their last chance to be this abusive
Their last chance to make such comments
Their last chance to act like infants
And knowing that they enjoyed doing what they did.
Enjoyed it in much the same sick sadistic way
That a torturer enjoys his work.

Now they scurry to and fro
Trying to justify
To find another scapegoat
To shift the blame
For their actions
Their lack of action
Their blindness.

This isn't something new.
It was forecast years ago
Stephen King made it big, with "Carrie".
So why this shock
When two boys with guns
Do in reality
What one girl with PK
Did in fiction?

Taking away the computers won't change things
Taking away the internet access won't change things either
Taking away the games merely takes away an outlet
Taking away the guns will only slow things down.

Forcing the different of this world to conform
Will not alter their difference.
Painting a panther with stripes does not make it a zebra.

27 April 1999.

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