Bang Poem by Violet Eztli

He laughed and shook his head
as he neatly slipped the card back into the flowery envelope
and tucked it into his back pocket
After a yawn and a stretch, he finally looked up,
still smiling that lazy smile
He had only a lone second to register what was in front of him
before the bang thundered throughout the room,
forcing its way into the ears and minds of everyone around,
barely preparing them for the nauseating thud that followed

In those definitive moments,
every thought,
memory,
concern,
and intention he ever had flowed out of him
They trickled out of his forehead,
into the soft hair his mother loved,
soaking through the blue rug his father hated,
to lay rest in the cracks of the maple wood floor beneath
His heart thumped
thumped
thumped
against his ribs in a divine closing countdown
as he let out a low, almost relieved, sigh
And that was that.