DEATH Poem: Graphite Grim Reaper, by Josh Stone

Locked and loaded
I’ve practiced with it before
I know how to use it
Tonight
is the night
there’s no going back
all options exhausted
my pencil a gun
I press hard against my header
of this blood red notepad page
and pull the goddamn trigger

But the lead breaks
gun jams
a sad, single, broken squiggle
Fuck!
This gunpower graphite grim reaper
didn’t want my final gift

Words won’t heal these wounds
despite decades of self-inflicted salve
miles of ruts in ancient roads
carved by carts full of family bullet holes

Cursed lullabies inside my head
“Bring out your dead, boy.
Bring out your dead.
Don’t let them get close, boy
your secrets will spread.”

I can’t erase the squiggle.
like I can’t erase the past.
but maybe
I don’t have to.

there are many more pages here
notebook and body

room for
more scribbles
sonnets
songs
courageous exchanges
encouraging words

So I’ll let the last of my faith
set her sights on this gunpower prayer
May
this broken
S
q
u
i
gg
l
e Misfire
be a holy demarcation
between all of my aims before I was broken
and all of the beauty still down range.