If you've never pressed a gun barrel against the side of your head
It feels like
A dime or a quarter (depending on the caliber) that you put
To rest in a freezer
It's always cold
It could have been sitting in a car baking in a
Humid Pennsylvania July or the
Harsh southern sun
But it always feels like you've pulled it out of a freezer
And it always feels like its been made to sit in your hand
Pressed against your head.

I had a sick thought the other day
That I'd put that cold barrel to my head and pull the trigger
And the gun wouldn't go off
The hammer would fall and the cylinder would rotate and I
Would have a story:
"Imagine if it would have gone off!"

It's a weird self serving fantasy
Some otherworldly power saving me
Me admiring a primer that was dented but unfired
Putting it on a chain and wearing it around to say
"I'm serious, it could have gone off!"
And people would say
"Wow, he's deep, he feels things, he know what pain is"

But the truth is
We all know what pain is
In one form or another
Whether it's a inattentive parent
A drinking problem
A stressful job
Or no job at all
A spent shell casing
Or believing that your
Life is worth saving.

In reality
There would be no dented primer
No necklace
No veil of pain and deeper understanding

It would be my brains as a greasy stain over the
Poor paint job of my apartment
A screaming fiance
A job that would scold my absence until someone called them
And told them that the primer was fine
The life was over
The position was open.

It's odd
To weather some of the hardest things in life
But a minor slip up or mistake
Can make you fantasize about it being over
It's the minor inconveniences that make
The abrupt ending all the more appealing
Like wind rustling a dead leaf from a
Barren branch.