UNTOLD

Orlando, 6/12/2016

On the screen in my living room

the newsman sits

calm

benevolent

groomed

Over his shoulder

a name

a number

Alejandro Barrios Martinez

21

             (21!)

maybe a selfie

or a picture from his little sister's quinceañera

"He lit up a room" they'll say, or

"He'd give you the shirt off his back"

and we might learn that

he was a pre-med student

or worked in his father's bakery.

But that's not the whole story

The whole story is how

Alejandro Barrios Martinez

21

called his grandmother every Sunday

even though she had dementia

or how the roast caught fire at his first dinner party

and they ordered Domino's instead

and everyone said it was the best dinner party they had ever been to.

The whole story is how

Alejandro Barrios Martinez

21

spent the last moments of his life

afraid

bloody

crying

and lying on a dirty nightclub floor.

The story of Alejandro Barrios Martinez

took 21 years to tell

multiplied by forty-nine

plus fifty-three

plus the lives of everyone at that dinner party

and one grandmother 

On the screen in my living room

a name

a number

And I can't bear to look

but I can't look away

because

on the screen in my living room

the name

and the number 

are mine