Kadari Machen

Seventeen Too by Kadari Machen

What would I get if I shot three and killed two? Maybe a cell, twenty years, probably a shot to the head for acting like a fool.

With an AR-15, how would I be met? I can’t even walk around in a hoodie without being seen as a threat.

Me walking to a protest with an assault rifle, you could only pray that I stay alive, You see, when you look like me, that’s called suicide. But even if I made it out, surely the courtroom would be my demise.

Would the judge say the people I killed weren’t victims? Wouldn’t everyone speak up and contradict him?

I’m seventeen too but no doubt they’d see me as a grown man. I know they wouldn’t sympathize if I dared to cry on the stand. If I had pulled the trigger, would strangers send me millions for my defense plan? I think instead they would see my actions as a capital offense to reprimand.

Would congressmen offer me internships while still on trial? If I killed two, would I be seen as a hero, like Kyle? Will there be change or will these stories continue to compile? Two steps forward and then we go backwards two hundred miles.