On Thursday January 20, 2011 I posted the following poem by Randall Mann to my blog:
September Elegies
in memory of Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Billy Lucas, and Tyler Clementi
There are those who suffer in plain sight,
there are those who suffer in private.
Nothing but secondhand details:
a last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak.
There are those who suffer in private.
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13.
A last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak:
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13;
the one in Cooks Head, aged 15:
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
He was found by his mother.
The one in Cooks Head, aged 15.
The one in Greensburg, aged 15:
he was found by his mother.
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me,”
the one in Greensburg, aged 15,
posted on his profile.
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me.”
The words turn and turn on themselves.
Posted on his profile,
“Jumping off the gw bridge sorry”:
the words turn, and turn on themselves,
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.
There are those who suffer in plain sight
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
Nothing but secondhand details.
Last Friday, March 16, 2012, a jury convicted Dharun Ravi (Clementi’s roommate) of “of invasion of privacy, witness tampering and evidence tampering, plus bias intimidation…”*
I’m conflicted about this verdict. I admittedly do not know all the details of this case. What I do know is that Tyler Clementi threw himself off the George Washington Bridge and now his roommate is going to jail. What I do know is that lives are ruined and it doesn’t make me angry or vengeful. It just makes me sad. What I do know is that the final refrain of this poem is even more poignant to me now than it was last year.
Brianna Pike 