Today's poem is by Neil Carpathios

Confessions of a Bullet
       

I wanted to be bigger.
It can be hard to hit a man being so small.
You'd think they'd have made me at least the size of the target:
a heart, a head, the back of a man fleeing.
Sometimes I'd dream of disguising myself
as something beautiful, luring targets
inside me, swallowing a man whole.
As it happens,
I bounced off a wall.
A little boy found me in the dirt.
He keeps me in a box
with a blue feather,
a seashell,
a shiny gold coin.
Sometimes he takes me out
and holds me up to the light.
He likes to think I passed through
an arm or a leg or maybe
even a skull.
Ah, little boys.

I remember the man who kissed me for luck
before loading me into his gun.
I wonder what happened to him
and the other bullets I got to know
waiting in the cold metallic dark.

It didn't work out how I hoped,
but I have faith in the genius of men.
I know they'll make a bullet one day
the size of a neighborhood
or a city or a country.
Maybe they already have.
One day they'll have a bullet
as big as the world,
so there's no way they can miss.

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Copyright © 2023 Neil Carpathios All rights reserved
from Lifeaholics Anonymous
Kelsay Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission