it isn't my tragedy

on this day in history

it isn't my tragedy
it isn't my war
but you brought it
to my door step.

my parliament
my home
my Capital.

don't give me
your damned
reasons.

I don't care if
you don't like
the cut of
my Prime Minister's jib.

you shouldn't
have fucked
with my country.

it isn't my tragedy
and yet you
forced it upon me.

In 1985 I walked
freely in parliament
I shook the hand
of the leader of our country.

no high school student today will ever get that opportunity.
October 22, 2014, it became my tragedy.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ottawa-shooting-a-day-of-chaos-leaves-soldier-gunman-dead-1.2808710

Author's Note

Reviews

[icelandicblue]

There was a time when Abraham Lincoln would wake up and find regular citizens sleeping on his chairs and sofas in the White House. Anyone could walk in at any time. When he was killed the practice of leaving the door opened was stopped. With Kennedy there was no more opportunity to see a president in an open vehicle. I saw the pope once in Boston before the pope mobile. I have pictures of me on the roof of the World Trade Center in the 80's.Those pictures blow my ever loving mind. I have leaned up against the rod iron fence and stuck my hand between the spaces at the White House. Now it is barricaded and guarded. Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, was assassinated on 28 February 1986 in Stockholm, Sweden while waking back from the cinema. My son and husband were in London for my son's soccer tournament when the underground was bombed. I drove through Boston and to the airport on the day of the Boston bombing. I was scared but I would be dammed before I turned home and hid in my house. It's complex but the bottom line is we live in a global society, a society that does not help its mentally ill who seem to be becoming single cell terrorists and we are vulnerable because we are free and democratic countries. Seeds of fear and terror are what these guys do best...much more so than actual killings they steal our security and it makes us become more closed and those of us who love the taste of freedom and crossing the border with ease, lament with you. But I do believe it has been a cascade of events that has been in the making for a long time.

[Lyn Anderson]

Yes for sure. Thank you.

[Lyn Anderson]

I have been seething since September 11, 2001 and the death and mayhem that continues to erode at the core of us -- seeping into our collective consciousness the hate and fear. I want my free borders back. I want to wheel a granny through the airport without her colostomy bag being suspect. I grew up on the American border. We travelled freely back and forth. Instead of joining with us, we become divided, seen as the problem, the weak link in the security chain. Well, d****t, I liked not being on lock down. Give me back my life. They say October 22 we lost our innocence. Oh, we lost it a long time ago. Now it's just official.