by Max Gilman '25 on November 10, 2023
Portfolio Co-Editor
Portfolio
i gambled my guns away,
fittingly, i get shot in the back constantly,
never willing to turn the head to see who,
or where or why.
Ugly is the capitalization of the third eye,
and people expect me to have an answer,
why you or they cannot get close,
i gambled my guns away like a pro.
i guess i’m not apologizing, rather bent and standoffish,
sluggish and ingrained with gun-love,
the flag love, the stripe ridden—
The child lost
memory moss in a thwarted grove of broken swings,
like blinking streetlights.
flash.
I still refuse to be attached.
i piss on a flag and eat dirt instead of cutting my body,
but i still cut my body.
and i still hate the framed reflection that hangs over the sink.
Killer skin.
Like blue foam of tide-low,
like old men that liked me,
my body grew holes. And
they spit in squint-eye,
squared face with a cross of dollars,
rubber banded diamonds cutting
brows of no bother.
What the hell is a father?
stigmata is only for the porcelain chaplain,
stigmata is the money taken from the pockets of come-to-be-revolutionaries,
squandered by words
Of a jobless monk.
I gambled my guns away.
And i learned people are more than things
and things and people are alpines of
untold flowing rivers.
I know i need to climb the face
to hold my body above the mountain,
to burn my skin, like ritual,
in the circle of fire, called star, called son.