How Can I Be A Gun?

In this chamber; the vile void sits on

mahogany bench chairs and no one

checked my age at the door. Birthed with god-like

attributes, demons keep tailoring my clothes too

tight to realistically wear to work. I fear to be relieved

of my duties– who would then dampen all the desert

with a mother's tears and an overflow of chuckles gone silent?

The omission of freewill is something I wished for

the one time I blew out birthday candles before blowing

everything out of proportion for dashing American

orators who, when in private, polish off my imperfections

the way struggling waiters do wobbling table tops.

My wails scratch the thresholds of insitutions which

don't belong anywhere near me. The light at the end of the

tunnel is often left opaque by the time the rush starts to

dwindle, smoke particles landing on top of children's heads after

watching a fireworks show. How can I be a gun?

How can I embody this ocular inferno seeping through

groundwood and Technicolor? How can I be a gun when I hoped

to be a human agency the way St. Peter is, welcoming

vacationers to paradise. Do I conflate? Am I and St. Peters not one and the

same?

The trajectory is fickle.

It morphs and shifts and changes and meanders.

But it always ends in the exact same spot, and then reloops.

I always end tangled and wrapped around a lingering

thought–a memento of fleeting days.

And the rush comes and goes

but so does the inertia

of the epilogue

recited by the same newscaster

in the exact same tone

and on the exact same day.