Every time I go to any shooting range, attempting
to learn the skills to protect myself, a new instructor 
puts a bullet in my flesh with a different excuse.
At best they are not skilled with this type of gun,
this shooting range is underfunded, set up poorly,
muzzle flagged by accident, wrong place, wrong time.
At worst they say I’m easy to mistake, uncanny face,
for a ballistic dummy. The wound channels appear
nearly real, a perfect study, ripe for clinical notes.
Those instructors are the ones to tell me to stand stoic,
let them probe my injuries, might as well, the damage
is already done. And who will listen to a polyurethane 
mold of a human when it pleads you’re making it worse.