Presley Pendergrass
I found myself, pen in hand, ready to kill.
I pursued you who walked about namelessly plain,
and leapt across the earth’s open gill,
landing without a sign or sound of pain.
I wrote myself a gun which trembled in my grip.
Among the trees I knelt beneath a love I could not hold.
One eye open wide, burned blind by the sun’s raw whip.
The other, shut purple, held a perspective untold.
I craved the vast uncertainty of someone new
but feared your curls, entwined—a quiet snare.
Your fingers locked with mine, a heat which grew;
A love that tightens into a red-faced prayer.
Is my purpose—my skin, my flesh, my bone?
Is love confined to what a person shows?
Do my thoughts mean nothing when I am alone?
Must I kill you here just so my love grows?
Would I still love the way your eyes align,
if I could see myself through their debris?
I sit a hunter crouched behind the optic line,
who watches you, watching me.
And as my stupid love for you upheaves
a hollow echo bounces underneath my Sunday best.
The gray birds ascend beyond the leaves,
the bullet, now a part of me, held tightly in my chest.