Looking Under My Boot-soles

Saw John’s mom in the library today. She told me that John’s killer only served a year and a day for what he did to John. People have served more time bringing chewing gum into Singapore than John’s killer served for shooting him with a crossbow. She told me about the letter that she wrote to the killer and to the judge, the letter that she read aloud that day of sentencing. There probably wasn’t a dry eye in the courtroom. I told her of the passage I had written about John only hours after she had told me of his death. It was a journal entry that I wrote while terribly upset, a journal entry that I had been unable to share with her these last two years because…well, I was afraid to. After all, he meant more to her than I’ll ever know…more than anyone will ever know. I finally printed a copy of the journal entry, along with Song 52 of Song of Myself from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and gave it to her. I put it in an envelope and asked her to read it at home. I couldn’t read it again. I don’t have to read it again…