“If I don’t deserve the credit, why do I deserve the blame?”

↓

 

 

 

 

 

I draw the hammer back like a wolf peels its lips to bare its fangs.

 

I keep my eye on the iron sights.

 

Just like the best pistoleers the U.S. Government has on its payroll taught me.

 

 

 

The revolver a friend loaned me feels comfortable in my hands.

 

(Even though I grew up in New Jersey, with a mother that hated guns and a father that loved her too much to argue with her.)

 

I breathe.

 

Slow and steady.

 

On my exhale, the weapon roars.

 

 

 

I let it howl for me.

 

All my rage in a compact .357 dimension.

 

The silhouette barely moves, as a round passes through its center like a sultry woman’s words in a man’s ear.

 

Powerfully yet almost imperceptibly.

 

 

 

Now, a lot of men throw lead downrange angry.

 

Thinking of the folks that hurt them or would, if given half a chance.

 

I’m not those men.

 

Not quite.

 

 

 

I’m not thinking of the fiancé that left me on Christmas Day for another man.

 

I’m not imagining the best friend I had that abandoned me when I needed him most.

 

I’m not pretending the target is the amalgamation of the officials that drummed me out of my career in disgrace and shame.

 

Instead—

 

The silhouette is a mirror.

 

 

 

I’m shooting at me.

 

The fat, old, broken man I’ve allowed myself to become.

 

The fuck-up that made more than a decade’s worth of bad decisions.

 

The fool that let women and the outside world determine his value. 

 

While bullet after bullet finds the paper reflection of the broken heart that brought me low.

 

 

 

After I finish the ammo a good friend generously gave me, I look at my work.

 

 

Thinking:

 

Not bad, old man.

 

Not bad.

 

 

 

Then I think on these tweets:

 

 

And what they, despite their humorous tone, reveal.

 

 

 

That, even with all my flaws, there’s something respectable – perhaps even a bit intimidating – left inside me.

 

Just waiting for aim to be taken.

 

And the trigger pulled.

 

 

 

Call it:

 

Six-gun salvation.

 

Who knows?

 

Maybe you need to realize your powder is still good, too.

 

 

 

 

 

Ω