Heavy topic for this Sunday’s writing. The prompt ‘EMPIRE OF THE GUN’ comes from @beausia and is one that readily calls forth thought and feeling. These are triggering nouns – empire: immediately rage and anger swells up into my chest, my head tightening with vigilance for the power around me that’s snatching up all it thinks it deserves. Gun: the bane of our existence in the U.S. and one that could be so easily vanquished were it not for seductive nature of its whispers of safety, protection, and need. I’ve always hated guns. I remember the first time I held one, it scared the shit out of me. Do you know what that feels like? To hold something in one hand that can END someone’s life? The U.S. is an empire of many things, the gun is only one of them. It likely won’t be in my lifetime, maybe not even in my future children’s lifetime…but one day, guns will be gone. Perhaps it will be because we’re gone too.

xo, adrienne

empire of the gun

made up of farmland and cities

and invisible routes drawn in the sky by warplanes

because bombs are like guns, but bigger

 

stars and stripes painted across psyches

bent worshiping at the altar of power,

convinced the threat is not coming, but here

 

it started when the ships arrived 

and the earth shuddered knowing

their footprints would leave permanent scars

 

the ‘civilized’ way of delivering terror

and safeguarding privilege,

killing us by design, not accident

 

what law can save us when it’s the hearts

and the minds, the fears and the righteousness

that drive their fingers to pull the trigger?

 

i learned in high school to run and hide, don’t make a sound

i learned as a teacher to protect my students at all costs

i learned as a black woman nothing can save me

 

i dream of the  day when 

we can stand among the ruins

of this empire of guns

surrounded by flowers, by life