Someday …

Someday, maybe … we will talk about why a 13-year-old boy was on the streets with a gun at 2 am rather than being tucked safely in his bed on a school night.

Someday, maybe …we will talk about why 16-year-old girl was ready to stab another child to death in broad daylight rather than picking out a dress for Junior prom.

Someday, maybe … we will talk about why 22-year-old boys are choosing to perpetrate mass shootings rather then meet their friends at a bar for a drink and a laugh.

Someday, maybe … we will talk about why two teen girls were more concerned about retrieving their cellphones from the wrecked Uber driver’s car they carjacked than they were by the fact that they dragged a husband and father to death.

Someday, maybe … we will talk about how we pushed to mask and vaccine for safety while we murdered each other in the streets.

Someday, maybe … we will talk about how technology allowed us to see everything and blinded us to it all.

Someday, maybe … we will talk about why it was so important to remove the pledge and prayer from school at a time when patriotism and a higher power seemed needed so desperately.

Someday, maybe … we will talk about why we made daddys seem so much less important than they truly were.

Someday, maybe … we will talk about politicians in mansions never really cared about anything other than keeping those mansions.

Someday. Maybe.

But, not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow and maybe not even in my lifetime will we talk about it. Not now. Not without getting labeled, silenced, canceled.

Maybe someday we will talk about how we knew that. But, how we sat silently, not speaking. Any conversation a fight to avoid. The words of a free dialogue weaponized. Those brave enough to use them, pummeled and most sitting in a quiet, fearful nothing beyond occasional nods of agreement.

Someday, maybe … our children or great-grandchildren will sit in the ashes of what was — picking at the burnt shreds of blue, the stained scraps of white and tattered strips of red and talk about the United States and what they can remember of how it was, and what they had and what they lost.

And, someday … maybe on that day .. they will finally … just talk.