Thursday, December 22, 2011

Love, According to Larry Stahl

“Treat each one as if it’s fully functional and loaded,”
he says.
And that’s my biggest problem
because I know what an empty chamber feels like.
It’s metal-cold and there’s too much room,
but on the other hand, you can’t hurt anyone
and I’m grateful for that.

“Never point it at anyone that you’re not prepared to shoot,”
he insists.
“Common sense,” the whole room thinks.
And, you know, I haven’t.
Except maybe once.
She said she never wanted to see me again
which worked out, I suppose, in the end.

“This is the shell,”
he says, and he points to my chest.
“Inside is the bullet.
That’s the part that can kill.”
So now I know what it means
When I can feel the piece of lead in my chest pound
Making it hard to breathe.

“When you pull the trigger
the hammer strikes the cap, and it explodes,”
he looks at her when he says it.
Maybe he knows what her smile does to me.
The way he describes being shot, it sounds like most mornings,
because when you open your eyes, I get tunnel vision
and I’d swear I can feel them looking right through me.

Did you know,
That when you finally let me see your face,
I feel holy?

“If they see you with it and stop you;
One: Do nothing quickly.
And two: Do nothing, quickly.”
But Larry, I don’t mean to be disrespectful,
I’m just so fucking sick of freezing when I see her.
So I’m going to spin it around my finger
Give her a John Wayne smile
And tell her to draw, pilgrim.

See, the thing is, Larry
I know I’m being unsafe
and your advice is great, don’t get me wrong,
but the thing is,
and I don’t know about you,
but when I find myself staring down the barrel
I get a split second to weigh my options,
pros and cons,
gain versus loss,
and, well, it may not be safe,
but we wouldn’t play with guns
if they didn’t make us feel so damn alive,
would we?

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home