Bang

Your casket was drowned in shades of gray
Like the streets you thought you could own
As if the streets were a gun you could set to safety
And tuck behind your belt buckle
Without fear of it backfiring

We were soulmates
You were a soul I used to walk side by side with from bus stops
A soul who had toys, basketball cards, and a mom
We tried our hardest to stand next to each other in class photos
You would always try to find me before church started

We grew up
And now that soul is gone and I walk alone, next to no one filling your void
But a 6 foot storm, a vertical cloud of black dust
It reeks of worms and the soil you rest in
And I get scared every time I see it and pretend it isn't there
But it's hoping I look up and make eye contact with this demon
This walking scourge of poisonous flashbacks
A plague of disorders that wants to convince me
That my world is in a hellish vacuum
And I am burning with it
And I try to outrun your pitch black placeholder
But this thing always waves to me and
Promises we'll meet up later

We were freshman in high school and we took a walk in the woods
You told me of the new friends you made
You pulled out your 9mm and fired 2 aimless shots
And I saw how narrow and fast your life was going
As BANG goes your GPA and BANG goes your dreams after we graduate
I told you with the honesty of a saint
And with the grace of an angel's plea
That living by the sword meant dying by the sword
And I reminded you that the rule applies to guns too
I even prayed for you and I felt like those prayers
Were shot dead before they could make it past my roof

I don't know what thoughts or chemicals were going through your head
When you embarked on this suicide drive by
With a gang of gargoyles wearing blood on their sleeves
A lifestyle of half reality and half maelstrom

And I’ve known you long enough to know
That my warnings and prayers kept cycling
Through your head like wheels going 40 mph
Yet you kept driving and driving even though
God put signs along the way telling you to stop

But the noises of gunfire deafened your remorseless ears as
BANG goes the beer bottles laid against window sills
And BANG goes the slumber of sleeping children
And BANG goes the ripping chambers of an unsuspecting heart

Your life was marked like tombstones
An hourglass of imminent devastation
Barely balanced over your head
Where there once was a halo
You were missing for weeks until the night of your death
For weeks you were a ghost before you became a corpse
Until the night you turned the corner that led to your fate

As BANG goes your life
BANG goes my friend who could have been
BANG goes a blowhole through your family portrait

A teardrop leaves its mark on paper
And blurs the margins
A message for you kept safe by its sender forever