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Bullet.

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I just read about the shootings in Chicago over the 4th of July weekend.

I want to share something with you.

This isn’t a protest song. Or a political song. Or an anti- or pro- anything song.

It’s a song sung from the perspective of the bullet that killed a six-year old boy at his elementary school in Sandy Hook, CT one December morning.

And it’s the song I’m most grateful for having written.

This is ‘Bullet’:

BULLET
they took me from the fire
metal forged my skin
for what darker of desires
lay in the hearts of men
then they put me in a box
with others just like me
high upon a shelf
for all the world to see

i could have landed in a twelve point
under amber autumn sky
or in the old fallen willow
where paper targets die
but i don’t make those kind of choices
i have to go where i am sent
i never know where i am going
until i know where i went

he took the box down in secret
and left me in his room
underneath a glowing screen
where he drowned himself in doom
until he had enough one day
when he took me in his hand
and put me in a darker place
where i heard the hammer slam

i could have flown over the ocean
in an officer’s salute
or taken down your killer
before he had time to shoot
but i don’t make those kind of choices
i have to go where i am sent
i never know where i am going
until i know where i went

i flew closer
and closer
i flew closer
and closer
i flew closer

and closer and closer to you
but i didn’t mean to hurt you
i had to go where i was sent
i didn’t know where i was going
but now i know where i went

Other thoughts

what carries me