I Never Knew Them

I Never Knew Them

I sipped lemonade from a mug
on a lazy Sunday in late August.
Jess opened a bag of chips
while Albert found a good radio station
that played music instead of news;
we were so sick of news,
we couldn’t escape the news.
Everyone wept, the whole world wept while we
sang Sugar Ray and snacked on
chips and dip and laughed at
the irony that Di…died.

No one stopped talking about the unfairness
of a princess so young, so popular, so saintly being
killed, murdered, martyr-ized by Paparazzi.
We didn’t understand why people
cried for a woman they never met, never knew
aside from what they read in the paper or saw
on television. I never knew her.

I won’t cry for a woman I never knew.

Three years pass and the mad-lib in my mind
erases Diana’s name and replaces it with
Daniel Lee.
Broadsided on his way to school,
killed instantly. Students around me cry
and sob and call home. I sit stoic. I won’t cry.
At home Mom asks if I’m okay. I say,
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
We watch the news and they show his car,
it’s silver instead of Diana’s death black.
They show his picture and I can see him now.
Gym class, he wore green socks, we laughed.
I never knew his name. I only knew his socks
and his picture on the five o’clock news.

I cried for the boy I never knew.

Written for "SLAM!"   by Cappucine