Last Night
by Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai
A whole series of events would be unfolding.
He didn’t say nothing, just boom, boom, boom.
I heard eight shots go as I was approaching the shopping center
We could hear guns going off –
They started to shoot and the soldiers in the white car closed their eyes.
We had no time, no time to gather our belongings,
No time to wash the blood from us
There are no fictitious scene here, nothing staged, only facts.
The woman spoke no words
It was a scream not like any scream coming from a child
It was almost like they were sleeping
We don’t know how many people there are
Where they are, what condition they are in
There’s not enough time to comb
The whole country for mass graves
The waiting is hard
I sure hope it’s not a bad omen
The worst thing is the unpredictability of it all
I still don’t quite believe it
It’s hard to take in that someone you saw
One day is gone the next
It’s like she was stolen
I think about him when I go to sleep.
She has been with me all the time,
Every day, when I wake up,
The thought in my head is him
She is my backbone
I still don’t quite believe it
I have given up violence, but
Do I have an argument for those
Who have seen 800 friends killed since 1996,
What do I say?
There is no way to protect ourselves.
We would have to be in the street day and night.
The future starts to be frightening
Instead of consoling.
He didn’t know the people that he killed.
He didn’t know their families
This was a specific killing
The people did what they were
Intending to do.
There’s never truly a case of spontaneous violence.
I would know my shadow and my light
So shall I at last be whole
They did make choices as they went
They spared some and killed others
He said if he has to suffer other people
Will suffer like the people who put him in this position
He said it will happen when it happens.
If he was so angry, why didn’t he just shoot himself?
It is more akin to a crime carried out by
A primitive caveman than it is of a society
Entering the 21st century.
As long as they are able to kill
I will not use the word weak.
There is a right to obey and a right kill
Young men that don’t care what happens to them
They figure there’s nothing left to lose
Apparently, he is not concerned with
What happened. He is sleeping
I don’t have any regrets
Had to fight for what is right
Talking to you here on the street
It’s hard to imagine putting a gun inside
Someone’s mouth
In our culture,
We do what the father says
The fears of the father are transferred
To the son. It was from my father to me
And from me to my son
When you deal with children
There is a hypersense of reality
A lot of people think the most vicious kids are
In gangs, but that’s not true
They’re on an invisible conveyor belt to
The juvenile hall that hasn’t even been built yet
You know I love my children
More than life itself
They were my light
My heroes
Bring your children into it…
Let them know where they came from.
You have to excavate it
I can’t say
I’m going to stop it
I’m not God
I’m not superman
A lot of people are from both sides of the gun.
On one side is satisfying the vengeance of thousands of people
Whose sons have died
It’s a sense that somebody has to pay
I’m tired of people passing the buck
I want to see him hanged with my own eyes
Those who practice terror must pay the price
God will take care of it
God can do anything
As soon as churches and mosques are burnt
It is almost certain to be 100% war
We need to take all of the
Tools available to us
It could not work, it did not work. It will not work.
We have no power, and we have no control.
The thing is there is no fairness
It just enters your life arbitrarily
There is no reason to sit back and think this is all over
This is a marathon
I beg of you to be wiser than they are.
by Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai
A whole series of events would be unfolding.
He didn’t say nothing, just boom, boom, boom.
I heard eight shots go as I was approaching the shopping center
We could hear guns going off –
They started to shoot and the soldiers in the white car closed their eyes.
We had no time, no time to gather our belongings,
No time to wash the blood from us
There are no fictitious scene here, nothing staged, only facts.
The woman spoke no words
It was a scream not like any scream coming from a child
It was almost like they were sleeping
We don’t know how many people there are
Where they are, what condition they are in
There’s not enough time to comb
The whole country for mass graves
The waiting is hard
I sure hope it’s not a bad omen
The worst thing is the unpredictability of it all
I still don’t quite believe it
It’s hard to take in that someone you saw
One day is gone the next
It’s like she was stolen
I think about him when I go to sleep.
She has been with me all the time,
Every day, when I wake up,
The thought in my head is him
She is my backbone
I still don’t quite believe it
I have given up violence, but
Do I have an argument for those
Who have seen 800 friends killed since 1996,
What do I say?
There is no way to protect ourselves.
We would have to be in the street day and night.
The future starts to be frightening
Instead of consoling.
He didn’t know the people that he killed.
He didn’t know their families
This was a specific killing
The people did what they were
Intending to do.
There’s never truly a case of spontaneous violence.
I would know my shadow and my light
So shall I at last be whole
They did make choices as they went
They spared some and killed others
He said if he has to suffer other people
Will suffer like the people who put him in this position
He said it will happen when it happens.
If he was so angry, why didn’t he just shoot himself?
It is more akin to a crime carried out by
A primitive caveman than it is of a society
Entering the 21st century.
As long as they are able to kill
I will not use the word weak.
There is a right to obey and a right kill
Young men that don’t care what happens to them
They figure there’s nothing left to lose
Apparently, he is not concerned with
What happened. He is sleeping
I don’t have any regrets
Had to fight for what is right
Talking to you here on the street
It’s hard to imagine putting a gun inside
Someone’s mouth
In our culture,
We do what the father says
The fears of the father are transferred
To the son. It was from my father to me
And from me to my son
When you deal with children
There is a hypersense of reality
A lot of people think the most vicious kids are
In gangs, but that’s not true
They’re on an invisible conveyor belt to
The juvenile hall that hasn’t even been built yet
You know I love my children
More than life itself
They were my light
My heroes
Bring your children into it…
Let them know where they came from.
You have to excavate it
I can’t say
I’m going to stop it
I’m not God
I’m not superman
A lot of people are from both sides of the gun.
On one side is satisfying the vengeance of thousands of people
Whose sons have died
It’s a sense that somebody has to pay
I’m tired of people passing the buck
I want to see him hanged with my own eyes
Those who practice terror must pay the price
God will take care of it
God can do anything
As soon as churches and mosques are burnt
It is almost certain to be 100% war
We need to take all of the
Tools available to us
It could not work, it did not work. It will not work.
We have no power, and we have no control.
The thing is there is no fairness
It just enters your life arbitrarily
There is no reason to sit back and think this is all over
This is a marathon
I beg of you to be wiser than they are.
