The Day After I Died
Amelie Edmondson
The day after I died,
I strolled into my living room,
and watched my mum watch TV,
her eyes glassy,
still red with tears.
Don’t think she was even paying attention to it,
but if she had,
she’d see that the whole country was mourning my tragedy.
The day after I died,
I went to school like I always did,
but I couldn’t reach my classroom,
because the hallways were clogged with students,
on their way to my memorial
by the priest with tears in his eyes.
His daughter was my age,
too young.
The day after I died,
I lurked outside the corner shop,
eternally with no money.
The streets were crowded with protesters,
angry on behalf of those like me.
They’d gone too far
this time, the last time.
The day after I died,
I read a newspaper
through the window of a newsagents,
permanently closed.
The British embassy had been burnt to the ground.
We were angry,
and if we paid with life,
they’d pay with property.
The day after I died,
Derry didn’t feel the same.
Everyone I saw was sad and angry,
parents, siblings and friends quietly mourning in the streets.
My blood was still on Williams Street,
a splatter of dark red from where I’d tried to run.
The ground was still warm
from where my body had fallen,
only to be trampled by others in danger.
The day after I died,
I sat and watched
my dad on the phone with my gran in Kilkenny,
my peers praying in chapel for my salvation,
mothers crying in the street for their wains,
the photographers capturing our blood on the street,
the wains asking their mothers why the streets were now bloody and tattered,
my name being whispered as a tragedy.
The day that I died,
was the day that the innocent were fired at,
the day that we were made victims but painted as villains,
the day that we decided we’d been pushed to our limit,
and that we’d had enough.
The day that I died,
Bloody Sunday.