The secret

The bullet is a star.

The barrel is a torch

shining up under my chin

through the top of my head

and into an infinite sky. 

Trigger warning:

scary flashlight face. 

The barrel is a telescope

that can see round corners. 

The bullet is a boomerang

I ride around the block. 

The muzzle flash 

is an instant here

and an eternity 

in some alien astronomy

observed from the surface 

of another world 

where I also live, 

have always somehow lived, 

a nova announcing 

some dark nativity there

during a season of grief. 

The lead is heavy with grief.

These two ounces of lead 

in the back of the mind,  

are a colossal asteroid of grief

for ancient extinctions, 

for unknown, unknowable loss,

for billions of years of death.

It prowls an ancient eccentric orbit

that takes it past other planet killers

in the cold congregation of comets,

each year a bullet, each year a star, 

that dances on your fingertips

as you type this poem. The reason 

I found my way back to this world, 

following my orbit back to you, 

the thing I call cowardice

and my therapist calls courage, 

the decision I made, 

the guarantee I gave myself, 

remains a mystery to me, a whisper

carried on some celestial breeze

from another world where another me 

knows why but keeps it a secret.