Silence at last.  I’m tired of speaking
and weary of responding.

People don’t understand that
in their voices I can perpetually hear

the deliberate roar of the pistol
through my own jaw;

or rather I could
until a few minutes ago, when

I got home and ran to the bedroom
to take the bullets out of my gun

and stuff them
into my ears.

I can put off my end
as long as I live in the quiet.

Every voice I heard tonight told me I was doomed.
Every deaf moment since I got home has kept that doom at bay.

No one knows I can hear the Scythe when they speak
unless I come out and confess it,

and then they want to tell me I’m lying about it
or that I have missed the joy of living.  No one understands

that I have known that joy,
and it’s that joy that makes me think of triggers and torn bones.

It’s knowing that I knew that all too well once
and that it seems more distant

every time a happy person breathes
or laughs in light of something

perfectly silly
or delightfully small.

I don’t hate them for their joy,
and begrudge them nothing.

It’s just safer for me here in the leaden comfort
of not hearing so many reminders of how distant pleasure is now.

I drill the bullets deeper into my head.
I do it without irony.  I know myself well enough

to know that if ever I decide to use them as they were designed,
it would be the hatred of their noise I’d have to overcome,

and not
of the silence to follow.