Poetry2ponder's Blog

“Stray Bullet” by Trevor Witt

A stray bullet hit her in the head,
The stray, wild, untamed, lonely bullet,
Hit her, struck, damaged, attacked, injured,
The stray bullet did not kill, murder, or obliterate,
Yet her sense of normalcy, of the humdrum, quotidian boredom,
Was forever shattered, like the neural connections for …

She can function, but she, does, not, like before, she is
Slow walk-ing, slow driv-ing, slow speak-ing,
Sometimes with a stut-stut-stutter,

Delayed signals from the brain
Leave deep wounds in her psyche,
As she learns to do … again.

The stray bullet did not save a life.
It did not stop a criminal.
It did not break a clay pigeon.
It did not kill the “enemy”.
It did not drive out the invader.
It did not hit the intended target.

Obviously,
The solution
is . . .

Smarter bullets.