Ice Cream and Coffins

The heat stuck to the bottom of blacktop streets

Where kids hoped for cold ice cream and bubble gum

When summer comes Miles liked his dad’s closet

Full of jackets, suits, and shirts

But his mother’s closet fit him better

In his dad’s he found pins, cufflinks, shell cases

and an item That fit his middle finger perfectly like a glove when

He wrapped his innocence around it

Straight out of the TV, his dad’s passion

and hobby became an answer

To his confusion to his misery

So he let go of the trigger

Parts of his childlike disposition didn’t raise questions

They buried his body, and what he had done

Like his thoughts of sticking out should lay with shame

Miles wasn’t wanted

So much he barely knew joy in his own clothes

Or his own skin

Someone said his name in vain so one day

He left and never came back and turned a closet into a coffin

Suicide and gun violence are real; the first friend I lost to suicide killed himself with a gun. I know we barely talk about kids killing kids, but there needs to be talk about kids killing themselves and people in general. This poem is not true (using my imagination ), but I hope it never becomes true for any kid. I wrote for the kids who feel so bad and want the pain to end so badly that they even attempt to kill themselves or are successful. I still am torn with pain over losing people to killing themselves. I wrote this for them also.