You’ve got
the happy house
I’ve got the shed in back
the one that’s out of sight

I’m the bullet
you need to chamber
the one you’re afraid to load
I’m your dog in the fight 

Call me menthol eyedrops
so I can clear your sight
It’s gonna hurt
but I will make you see cold

I let them steal my warmth
so they’d leave yours alone
Call me crazy, un-patriotic
I was born to be rolled

but I can take it —
I do the wet work so you
don’t have to — 
God loves drunks, fools, and me

when I’m the roar from your gut
The handyman of rage and impotence
transformed into drill sergeant
shock trooper, born free,

agent at the iron gates
of thieves and cutthroats
You get the happy house
I get the shed out back —

no one wants to live here with me
on the dirt floor and the thorn bed
under the sheets you discarded
your dinner candles down to their last wax

your crusts of bread and your graywater
You may not come out to say hi too often
but let something go wrong and here you are
not quite begging me but the message is clear

You want me to be the bullet in your chamber
You don’t like what you see with your freezing eyes
You’re scrambling for a dark foothold
The steps are slippery and you hate being here

Cut it short
Get back in the house
and light a good fire
I’ll be back in a second

shiny and slick
Dim and brutal
As nice as a good chef’s knife
used in a way you hadn’t reckoned

but knew was necessary
And when you ask me if I’m happy
Or if I’ve done the all-American thing
and at least pursued happiness as I wished

I’ll look at your house and that big fire
before I turn on my heel and go to my shack
You don’t get to ask that
You don’t get to know what I yearn for, what I’ve missed

by knowing that I was meant for this —
you in the happy house, me out back
You safe and sound, me the spent shell in the chamber
with cold eyes and chattering regret

that sounds like a bass guitar and snapping percussion
like the knots blowing up in your fireplace
like the sound of your feet hitting the floor
after each pop and report from the ashes you lit

I’m your spent shot and your guttering candle
Your easy to call on and hard to reject
Your cousin, your brother, your dirty old uncle
in the shack where you send me when you try to forget