If you give a mouse a cookie

He's going to ask you for a glass of milk

Ironic isn't it?

That you do the right thing out of kindness

 

Yet he continues to take more than you bargained for

And suddenly your stake is a lot bigger

Soon he takes everything from you

Everything you thought you could control

 

Because maybe

The mouse is a man

The cookie is a gun

And the milk is the ammunition

 

You offer the man an education

A safe place

And suddenly his name is all over the news

His blood on your hands

 

If you give a man a gun

He's going to ask for bullets

That seems more appropriate

Given the context

 

That the author of the book isn't Laura Numeroff

But our education system

Our news channels

Our so-called activists

 

Who plaster the names of the shooters like they're royalty amongst pigs

Ignoring that they were always the pigs

And the real Princes and Princesses don't feel safe enough

To come out of their castles

 

Their front doors baracaded

Locked and sealed

Marked for demolition

When they are deserving of a remodel

 

That is to say that we give our thoughts and prayers

Emphasis on prayers

But not enough thought

Not enough thought to the victims of the man and the mouse

 

Not enough thought to the kids taken by milk and cookies

By guns and bullets

So maybe guns don't kill people

People do

 

But when you give a person the tools to build a shed

Or destroy it

Then tell them not to pick up a hammer

What do you expect to happen?

 

Tell me the names of the heroes of Sandy Hook

Columbine

Uvalde

Santa Fe

 

You can't

Can you? 

But you remember names

Like

 

Nicholas Cruz

Adam Lanza

Eric Harris and

Dylan Klebold

 

You remember the names of the politicians who pledged to fight

But never did

The names of false promises

False hope

 

But never the names of the people who needed you most

Whose lives will never be the same

Whose lives you prevent from continuing

Whose lives you cast aside and ignore 

 

Like pigs among royalty

Like mice among men