"Gotta Knuckle Down Just Be Ok with This"

by Ross Gay 

The bullet, in its hunger, craves the womb 
of the body. The warm thrum there. Begs always 
release from the chilly, dumb chamber. 
Look at this one whose glee 
of escape was outshone only by the heavens 
above him. The night’s even-keeled 
breath. All things thus far dreams from 
his cramped bunker. But now 
the world. Let me be a ravenous diamond 
in it, he thinks, chewing through the milky jawbone 
of this handsome seventeen-year-old. Of course 
he would love to nestle amidst the brain’s 
scintillating catacombs (which, only for the boy’s dumb luck, 
slipped away) but this will do. The bullet does 
not, as the boy goes into shock, or as his best friend 
stutters, palming the fluid wound, want to know the nature 
of the conflict, nor the sound of the shooter’s 
mother in prayer, nor the shot child’s future harmonies: 
the tracheotomy’s muffled wheeze 
threaded through the pencil’s whisper as the boy scrawls I’m 
scared. No. 
the bullet, like you, simply craves 
the warmth of the body. Like you, only wants 
to die in someone’s arms.