This is a true story of ******’s ally
The old man carried a cello and a stool
Bullets divided wind
So many straight lines he could see them like sheet music
He sat the stool down in the middle of the street
Held his cello
And played under the gunshots
Until everything was quiet
And in the outdoor acoustics
Made by apartment buildings and the morning cold
He played a fifteen minute rendition of heartache
On a cello tuned to the key of thunder
His high notes were so much screaming
And the deep low notes bellowed his hunger
It was the simple sound of savagery
When people needed another way to know what pain sounds like
They could hear it in the way that the strings
Absorbed the rust from his arthritic fingertips
Scraping the sound of struggle
It was the most painfully beautiful music
He played to the soft continuous metronome click of reloading
Beauty like a rose that dies in the hair of a girl
Whose own rose is a blooming ****** chest wound
Thought maybe he could replant her
Like the earth might give her back
Anything plucked from the root dies shortly after
He played for her
He played for courage
He played like a prayer to be shot doing what he loved
We all wanna die doing what we love
She was shot picking roses
He played cello
On a playground of bullets
A song that begged
**** me
Where is your god now?
When all you wanted was to be a casualty of love and music
He finished
Beads of sweat like ***** diamonds
As the morning sun mocked him for living another day
Some of us get to walk away from this
Without a single scar
Even if we wanted one
He walked away
And shortly after
The bullets began to do what bullets do
When they pierce flesh