Remembering the 58 who lost their lives.
Everything is still changing – We live in a city that continues to help each other, we love harder, we are more aware, more eager to help, and we have a sense of community that was never there before. This is Las Vegas and this is our home.
The first poem, “Sanguine”, is the one I stayed home to write Sunday night 10/1/2017 instead of attending Route 91 with a free wristband.
💙 It has since been my tribute to the survivors 💙
Sanguine
People are beautiful
give them a chance.
Not everyone is out to get you
Strangers bring light into the darkest places
Play.
Laugh.
Keep a tight grip on childish emotions.
Stay excited
Fuel the fire
Fall.
Hard.
Plunge into love.
Spoil your dreams
Seek out the good in people
Indulge.
Humor.
Fiction is fraud
grass is green
The cup is full
You.
Me.
We are exactly where we are meant to be.
Triple take,
breathe every second
of every twinkling.
The stars fasten as the world falls apart.
The second poem, “Overhauling All We’ve Known”, took me nearly two years to write those three stanzas about an event that changed thousands of lives, including mine and my loved ones, forever. This is Las Vegas, Nevada, and this is our home.
Overhauling All We’ve Known
False fireworks
Spraying ricocheting lead
Stealing lives
on a flawless Vegas summer night
Burly men with shirts off
Plaid tourniquets
Cries for help left behind
Painful guilt traumatizing futures
Liters of gifted blood
Strangers embracing strangers
Unfathomable disaster
Embroidering hearts, wrenching a city together
– Breelyn Shelkey
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