Someone died today
Just round the corner at the small Woolworths mall in Klipfontein road
Most likely others died too
at the hand of some sordid human feud
Blooding the ground with futility
Not far away from here, not for any good reason

Some died today
not someone I know
I don’t know what she looked like
I don’t know her name
I don’t know her story

She died because someone decided to make a choice
They made a choice to use a firearm in a public space
They decided their outrage, their anger, their pain
was the only thing that mattered
And there she was in the crossfire
Meddling in the moment, her body simply moving as it always did, going about her business
no connection, no relation to the human holding the firearm
Sending a bullet meant for some other body

There was just that one fatality, I heard
And yet there were more today
I know this
because every day there are someones dying
for no good reason
for no good cause – as if there ever is
Every day somewhere there’s a mind failing itself, a heart strange to its own humanity

They die in violence
because we count the unimportant
we plague spaces with a presence devoid of love
Every day we fail our own humanity.