Give-away

“We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.” -Aesop

and who are my enemies?
If that’s you, have as many means
of my destruction as you can carry.
I’m seeking peace, see, inner peace,
and I believe in those scenes
where it all comes down to the gun
held in the good hand—and the palm’s
sweat tastes the metal for the tongue,
and under the open mouth of the barrel,
one heart claws its own arteries
close, waiting for the bang,
and the good hand can’t
squeeze and goes limp.

I’ve lost the heart for all this almost-killing.
Take it all; the only things left are knives I can’t
find, nooses woven from mucus, and secrets I’ll never acknowledge.