Self Inflicted

Shock waves, disbelief, anger, yes, even anger,
The story went, as we learned,
He was involved with this girl,
I guess she must have really been something,
And it all went wrong.
I don't think he talked to a soul about it,
All of this was pieced together later.
You were always the littler brother,
Running around with us older kids,
Back when two or three years mattered.
In the bigger picture, it didn't,
To kids, though, it is a vast difference.
By the time it all went down, I was in college,
You should have finished high school.
This was back before Columbine,
So it was no wonder the pistol got in,
Maybe today, it would have been noticed.
Not then though, over twenty years ago.
As I understand it, the girl broke up,
The boy, (that would be you) was depressed,
And took his brothers gun.
Very publicly, and dramatically,
He comitted suicide on that school day.
Sure, we clean it up, and official reports
Must say he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound,
But I doubt that erases the image all of us know,
There could not have been anything clean about it.