One Day I’ll Buy a Gun
Because I don’t need protection,
from childhood’s stalking
at my heels.
Never again, every
park jaunt where the lake becomes
a pool of red, honoring
the sunset’s
violent suggestions.
Never again, every
grocery store day checking the back
of knives and cereal boxes,
mirror images
writhing in my periphery
where wicked things gather
in the back of a blue eye,
bleached as sunlight.
I’ll turn my head and the blood will drain
from the photograph in my hand,
Never again, every
version of myself will close their hearts,
like a wound, crystallize untouched
new skin
new ways to live.
One day
I’ll keep these horrid thoughts out.
One day I’ll buy a gun
for good.
Never again, every
claim to be ingenuous. It is strength
armed within my body, proving
everything
I will not do.
One day
I’ll quit weaponizing my life,
and it will never be
my version of 6 pm anywhere,
never noon replayed on the floor,
dreaming of corpses haloed by
calla lilies, veiled by soil.
Never again, every
day I ruined just to feel half-real again.
I will not give myself up for a half-life
wasting away my time
wasting away.
One day
I will not dream of suicide and name it beautiful,
weighed heavy by every consolation prize.
One day I’ll buy a gun
and prove I won’t kill myself with it.
