Can you imagine it?

Scrunching your forehead,
pursing your lips,
sealing tight your eyes,
pulling your head back and into you neck in anticipation,
And a bullet going through your temple.

Your hands are out to a T if you're a martyr,
Or in front of your face in cover if you're scared.
or one is held out to the side of your head holding the gun.

Imagine the initial split second of a piercing pain and then shattering of your skull like oxygen being pumped into your exploding bone marrow. The next split second feeling is very wet or very dry, like being submerged in water or sand and then being thrusted ten thousand feet under.

It's hard to imagine when I'm in my car listening to FM radio at a stoplight with a vanilla air freshener hanging from my rear view mirror.

Young and old people sipping beer, with hands in pockets and heads nodding to the rock music, standing in a crescent around the stage.

Some 30 year-old guy in a cut-off is on stage playing a bright red guitar which is shining silver. He finishes his set.

I'm sitting here alone and nobody seems to mind. Actually a couple of people have smiled and said hello.

One of the drunker guys sitting at the bar yells "Encore" first and then the rest of the room starts echoing him. Encore. I even let out a few "Woos!"

This man probably trades his cutoff for a collar during his day job. But we liked listening to him. He take a long drink of his PBR.

Then, he starts playing his bright red guitar again. The rest of the room is cast  in red lighting with blue-christmas tree lights dangling around the room.

The bar itself looks like we are on the inside of the hull of a ship.
Woody, damp, safe. Decorated by a collector of whisky bottles and olden times posters.

I'm in a booth and to my right is the act which just ended and to my left, books. "Can I buy you a book," I ask a beautiful woman at the bar motioning to the books with a smooth wink.

Just kidding, maybe next time. But as the act ends I see a drunken, happy, young man with a girl who looked like she was his girlfriend.

In his drunken courage he attempts to take her hand and bring her to the dance floor, now empty. He pulls a rare for college, Charlie Brown dancing, sort of moveset and she is laughing. It's still red blue and dim but she's probably blushing.

He keeps dancing by her till she stands up and dances near him, both of them laughing and enjoying and somehow dancing to the rock music that is playing.

He keeps motioning his finger for her to "come here" as he backs in the center of the dance floor, until eventually she follows.

For one song, the two dance by-themselves to this music, in the center of the dance floor and lights, bobbing in and out, and just jamming.

Reading what you wrote -
after a long enough time,
let's you read what someone else wrote.

If there's no god then random particles bouncing over billions of years are writing this poem.

If there's no words you wait then as you waited like a kid for the mist to spray the veggie isle.

If there's no memory, and there's only blotches, then I drank so much *****.

If there's no *****, and you're in class, she'll act like you aren't even there.

College kids drink.
It's not the blood of Christ.
And when it is,
they still seem to abuse it.
The church doors are locked.
And my parents called.
And I don't know who these people are
And we're all drunk,
and it feels like skipping time.
Not in a grand sense of the word,
a 5 years ago I was in high-school sense of the word,
but where time doesn't exist, and there we are/

The night shines like gasoline oil.
But we're crammed together.
So I take a walk in bare feet in the mud.

I walk by guys who want to fight
Who smash bottles of Sky.
Shards exploding.

And I want my bed
and I walk home
a mile, then two, then it's three a.m.
Half jogging, drunk walking,
tipsy jogging, singing songs,
car lights are shooting starring
past me.

And no one drives me home this time
and I just want my bed
and I keep singing
some kid cudi song.

And then I'm home back in my bed
and I drink glasses of water
and then strip and get under the warm layers
and cool ceiling fan wind and drift asleep.

And I wake and drink more water.
Then fall asleep again.