an emerging violent

the last days of his pacifism

were those found in college,

when he could embrace a hippy-ethic &

he wore a bandana all the time---

there he wore his heart on his sleeves &

even though his pockets bore nothing but

lint,

during this time of youth,

there wasn’t really a need,

because he had what seemed like an endless

reservoir of

wit,

and it didn’t hurt that he had deep blue

Jared Leto eyes,

a flowing Robert Pattinson head of hair &

Johnny Depp

cheek bones.

 

pacifism to him

was that of Gandhi, King & Mandela &

while humming the tunes of Lennon,

he’d tell the beauty of choice

that if attacked by anyone,

he’d refuse to fight back, saying that

“we all die sometime,”

recollecting a story he remembered from

the authorized biography of Nirvana

which told a tale about Cobain getting the shit

kicked out of him by a guy who worked for a club

& always flipping him off,

each time the man rested from continuing the beating.

 

while all this was fine & dandy,

as time passed &

fucking led to more fucking,

eventually a condom broke

or was forgot,

and the freedom of youth came to a screeching halt

when the lady he’d been with

enlightened him

saying that “she was pro-life…that

she didn’t kill babies…etc.”

 

with the coming of a child

came the whole of responsibilities &

with the whole of responsibilities

came the loss of hair &

the pinching of every penny---

but something was different

when he watched his brand new baby girl

open her eyes.

 

how would he protect her?

how would he keep this horrible world

(which he swore he’d never drag a child into)

from corrupting & destroying

this beautiful innocent

who sat there, wide eyed

in front of him?

 

acquiring a gun was a process &

he felt guilty & hypocritical,

as if everything that he had believed in

had been thrown out the window---

but this country that he had grown up in,

did not protect its citizens from

other citizens, and furthermore,

many of its citizens were scared of

the government who had the wherewithal to

annihilate anyone,

using any number of weapons at its disposal.

 

holding the gun in his hand,

he wished he had been physically bigger,

but then again, there was always someone bigger---

but didn’t that argument follow when it game to guns?

if one person with a gun ran into another with a

bigger gun, or a bunch of people with guns,

did that mean that he’d have to get more guns?

did that mean he had to start hanging out with

people who had guns?

just how far did he have to take this?

just what would he have to do in order to protect his

child?

 

working one job wasn’t enough,

so it led to working two &

as the stress piled up &

the final hair turned grey or left his head entirely,

there wasn’t a bit of time to spend with

the mother of his child

or the child in question---

so she found someone who would &

she left him,

taking his beautiful baby girl.

 

how many times did he call her

trying to make things right?

how many times did he beg & plea,

getting nowhere?

 

now, a walking cliché,

something that if he’d seen it in a film

he’d walk out of the theater or

turn the goddamned thing off,

he feels that he has lost it all---

but he has a gun,

oh, but he has a gun.