Triggers and Leather Belts by Emily Warzeniak

Triggers and Leather Belts

I’m often given
To contemplating objects,
Memories,
And death.

I suspect
That there are connections
Between these things.

I’ve never been a fan of keeping
The ashes of dead loved ones.
Some people like to string them
About the neck
Like a choke hold of memory,
But I always thought such a thing
Would be far too heavy to carry that way.
Grief writes its own scars upon you
Without permission,
Leaves long, unwanted keloid love letters
Between freckles.

So I figure,
Why give bad memories excuse to stick around.
But, sometimes I still pull the bullet
Out of my pocket
For old time’s sake I guess.
I almost took my life with it that day.
I don’t even remember the date,
But I do remember the make and model of the gun,
And I do remember missing dad,
And all the things that died with him,
And how alone I felt.
And how tears can sometimes taste
Like battery acid,
And how your heartbeat can sometimes feel
Like the clink of metal rings
On chainlink fence.

I do remember
How the words “Home” and “family”
Seemed like such a sick joke
That I wanted to vomit them out of me.
And I was offended at how my dead, dumb tongue
Couldn’t seem to form them
Or understand their meaning,
And how people just couldn’t seem
To understand me,
And how God couldn’t understand
Such a simple request.
Just give me the strength
To pull the trigger.

But instead I got guilt
And more unwanted gifts
Like life,
And eternal self-loathing
For my pathetic weakness,
And more time to count my scars,
And pick up some more
From lost friendships and homes.

I can hear my mom’s ever so loving words
Rattling around in my pocket
With the bullets and loose change,
“You just want to be miserable,”
And,
“I’m glad he’s dead.”

From the mouth of babes.
Forgive them, Father,
They know not what they do.
I remember the hollow, lonely clinking
That bullet made
When I dropped it over the side of a cliff
On another day.
It was the same sound the wind made
When I threw Dad’s ashes
Over the side of that mountain.
And the same sound my footsteps used to make
Down the hallway in high school.

I remember spending days calculating
The physics of my body weight
And ceiling fans,
Versus the tensile strength
Of leather belts.
I remember how some days my bones ached
With rot and overanalyzing so much
I couldn’t even get up off the bed.
And how sleep reminded me too much
Of sorrow to rest,
So I played mind games with myself
To pass the endless empty hours
Between school and emotional abuse.
I remember when I would twirl that bullet
Between my fingers,
How the cool metal reminded me
Of the trigger guard of my rifle.
How it was cold like ice,
But much harder.
I remember how my lips felt
The stern chill of the barrel
As they crept up and over the end of it,
Like the newborn fawn crept into the meadow,
Peered its little head over the hood
Of the blue Chevy that one day
In Debeque.
I guess we are more similar than I realized.

Stop.

I can’t seem to stop the flow of memories
Like those ashes never seemed to stop
Drifting down the mountain,
How sand in the hourglass never ceases
Its tumbling down Colorado shale slides.

Stop.

And how the cold snap
Of your leather belts
In my palm
Stings like winter snow in the mountains,
And how gunpowder
Drifts like those ashes and,

Stop.
Just stop.

I love poetry the same way
I love rivers that can drown me,
Bullets that could kill me,
Not wearing seatbelts on freeways,
And wearing leather belts
As reminders
While I walk,
Because these days are treacherous,
Filled with memory,
Traps of smell, and sight, and sound,
And fall,
But,
I do get up out of bed
And my smile is a tattered, dog-eared page
In my favorite book
I somehow keep coming back to,
But I always remember
To carry my scars with me,
Like notches on a belt,
Counting times when I should have been dead,
But I’m still here.

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BIO: Emily Warzeniak is an artist, poet, and scientist currently attempting to survive the unforgiving climes of the New Mexican desert.

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