The Guns In Your Hand Poem by Joshua Bantum

I’ve slept with women
who afterwards
praise gods they’ve never met
asking for pleasure and happiness

How bad of memories they must have
for we just moaned for hours till the night came too,
the sun coming
after

She says
“it’s all gonna be ok, you see”
I nod my head
“you don’t gotta convince me”

And she’s young,
with a dead brother,
parents not understanding
the flowers
she’s stoned by. The mushrooms wore off
but the poison
she’s holding on to

She hasn’t woken up,
and I’ve slept with women
twice her age,
who haven’t woken up,
And it gets worse, the denial gets worse
their talks about
the All
get worse
and my stomach gets worse listening, but
They
they want happiness
all of it for themselves,
to ignore the pain
they’re a three legged dog
running a race
for steeds.

“you don’t gotta convince me” I say again
But they keep talking at my forehead,
or at the room,
and I’m listening less than the room,
but more than her
to herself.

If she heard herself, like me
she’d stop and relax,
then we could let our bodies
touch,
and listen to the truest thing
she’ll ever be able to provide

A heart beat,
one soft, and stable
alive,
unlike the dead words she recites
from people writing books
who are dead
reciting other authors
dead words
reciting them to me,
reciting, reciting and on.

But that beat,
her soft core, strength
its honesty of weakness
strength
its red envelope
encapsulating a message so few
can translate,
so few speaking its language
of forgiveness, spite,
hatred, death…
so few

I’ve slept with women
but being unable to open up,
they have not slept with me,
but instead,
just used my skin
my flesh.