Many times, when the pain of my heart would overflow
Someone would press a gun into my hand
And shove it against my temple.
I struggled with it and wrestled with it,
tearing the cold barrel
Away from my skin.

But instead the specter turned its scythe
Upon my grandmother
It would not cut her, only struck her blood
That she would bleed under her skin
And she bruised as if beaten

I wept by her bedside and grasped her hands
Soft like paper
And prayed that she might live to see me love and laugh again
And she rose from her sick bed
With her mind ever sharp, and her heart ever soft

Then the specter came for me
On leathery wings
With talons of protein
Injecting its DNA into me
To crown me its agent of pestilence
But I had enough of death and death-threats

I swore that I would live
I swore that I would beat it
I ripped the crown off my head
And beat it into the dust.