people **** people
with nothing but fingers and hair
and their very heavy breath.
their breath like a crow beak
before crucifixes of straw. like a tightening banishment of a lung.
remember when we would blow it
onto our car window and create that
consistent mirth of fog to
begin in?

the bodies riddled with bullets that flank
the highway are no such thing.
the schoolchildren lying face down in the corner of the closet are no such thing.
they are just winter coats with schoolchildren to fill them
for the time being.
no amputation of what’s mine
will aid them into the grave.
no mass communication grief. so
why would you call it a mass grave when in truth it was just a pit i dug to fill with crowds of people who died under the pretense that they had previously done so,
that nothing was new under the sun.

and when people **** people like people
do with their instruments
as ways of extending themselves into the world and into the marrow of our body
obliterating organs of people with their stretching of the muscular rib, shoulder.
one eye closes firmly.

it’s nothing but a hand gun
as if to say a hand eats the gun
and makes it whole.
as if to say the reinforced metal door
exit plan for people who are being killed by other people clicked shut and locked
15,000 years ago and i can’t quit slamming what’s left of me into it.

your kid is very dead.
but then again so is mine.
suppose they killed each other.
suppose they both made the mistake of dragging their small, stupid bodies through the trajectory of another body in the first place. in the chip aisle of a gas station maybe. in theaters this christmas.
in the midst of a good song that began playing on the lobby radio
just a minute before,
oh yeah before,
things really got going.

i saw people killing people
on television the other day
with their
whole bodies,
devouring themselves like surgical gloves
slick with oiled consumption
and bleeding out
and i could do nothing.
some kids died just because
and they told me so and i was told nothing could ever help them because they were just people and they were dying.

“breaking news” ended up just being people again.
in those moments, i was eating breakfast.
our houses were very quiet and needed me in all of them, grandfather clock over CNN, clarifying what has already been
committed and committed again.
the cipher was others lost blood.

will you protect our
heritage?

will you tell mom the
truth about us?

would you die for
me when they shoot at
us again?

last time nine
bullets hit me as i hustled
to save
tizzop

pop in the mag
rack the slide
take it off safety
lets go for a ride

pull back that trigger
hear a bang bang bang
another twelve shots
never feel the pain

I can’t walk into Walmart and not scan for shell casings,
see the bruises on the fruit and think of those who fell,
those now populating its aisles and borders
and calculate if it’s a number worth the killing
when the man in a heavy jacket with a bulge,
ramrod eyes and spine level as a concrete wall
decides to subtract brown and black from white.

I cant walk a crowded mall parking lot without scanning
for gapped car windows with no panting dogs inside,
searching for bump  stock impressions in the cloth and foam
venting the velocity of aggression in the unfolding humidity,
the rust in the panels mating with the rust in the soul,
the numbers adding to his perfect algorithm of annihilation
unaware that color is an impossible illogical subtraction.

The Aurora of the Dark Knight Rises stains every movie I see
adjusting my seating calculations towards the nearest exit,
making the ten dollar hustle two seats away a quaint fear
compared to the ****** page manifesto of nearby hands
restless for assault when the cool dark light hits every eye.
I’m safe, cuddled in the low numbers of  the matinee.
For now, I’m not worth the killing.