Tanisa Loveland
19 Meadow Way
Clover County, GA

Shooting Stars

But I was just in South Carolina...

Herbie and me, visiting my cousin.

Only 48 hours, not in Charleston, but we were close... we were there.

Walking in a grove of Oak and Cypress... it's funny, they call the Cypress "bald" but it's not bald, it's draped in dangling moss. Spanish moss. Beautiful.

Some call that moss a fuzzy beard and some call it maiden's mane, depending if you're partial to men or women.

I'm partial to everyone.

I didn't know there was gonna be a murder.

I guess you never know, but you'd think... you'd think you could feel it... a breath in the wind, a whisper, some sort of indication...

But those trees are haunted all the time, aren't they - bats and spiders, rats and snakes, all the time. People. Haunted with people. People with their bad thoughts and their broken minds, holding onto hate and history, thinking thoughts that move into action and then boom! Nine people are dead.

Nine people are dead.

Nine people are dead, but I was just there!

Walking along the trees, rubbing the star-shaped leaves of the sweetgum trees between my fingers - these fingers - looking up, wondering if all those stars are looking down at us... do they see us? What do they think of us? People...

Feeling so free... talking about jumping spiders. Did you know they have four eyes? My cousin told me. She says they jump like stories, here and there and everywhere, bringing a part of themselves everywhere they go. That's what jumping spiders do. I relate to that.

Poor spiders... Four eyes, but this is all there is to see. Jumping all over but they still end up here -- right back here.

There's been a lot of killing.

But we shouldn't be killing! Why are we killing? No one should be killing. People should not be allowed to shoot each other. Period.

The only ones who should be shooting are the stars.