Anaysis

There’s a bullet on people’s bedsides aching to get in their gun, and I’m not sure I know why. I shuffle through and I see the bullet’s eyes follow, determinately. Figuring where to hit me, what spot would kill me quickest, weak point. To bleed to death or the instantcy of a head shot. I try not to make eye contact, but it’s no use. It’s on me, and I can’t do anything about it. The round target is there and it’s getting larger every time I move by.

So, I’m stuck, and I begin to move like a ghost. Pass through people, make no eye contact, feel nothing. I think it may make things better, make things easier, make me invisible to the bullets, but they escalate. New reasons and feelings surface and bubble out.

I begin to think back on my childhood. A childhood without targets or firearms. I moved without knowing, with the mindset that those things didn’t exist. A bat on my shoulder, looking over the fence into the next yard where a dog is barking. Diversions were created, and the ball retrieved. This was the extent of our problems as the air stuck to our clothes and band-aids covered scabs, losing the ball to a dog. Now, things are much different. Targets on my front and back, and bullets being loaded. Confrontation seems to be my only recourse, and that’s terrifying. Where I am, where I was don’t really matter. What mattes now is how I deal with what’s next, and the ghost won’t help the outside world but it sure protects me.