A Ruins Poem by Amberlee Carter

My eyes have turned pitch-black
and my hands as pale as knives.
Death is a traitorous fruit with a sweet pit,
whose roots run
as deep as the heart's burning;
Once I loved a boy with sad eyes,
whose longing was never for this earth;
his soul was a dove who one morning
perched itself upon my windowsill
and then vanished like a winged dream-
I love him still.

I have a gun with only one bullet,
I should aim it towards my head
and put an end to this madness-
or I could point it towards
the memory of my father,
to murder what hurt his absence created.
Or better yet, I could fire
a single shot into my mother’s ache,
and bring all my mourning to a conclusion,
and my life to an hour which has no name.