Alex Gallo-Brown reflects on one man’s acts of violence, and the impact they have had on his life.
—
A History of Violence
I
No anti-epiphany. No sudden
precipice. Just the barely-audible
susurration of poetry
leaking out of my life.
Things become just
ordinarily frustrating,
concrete in a way
that needed no exploration.
My new life littered
with receipts floss picks q-tips
multivitamins remote controls ice trays
websites forms applications
in need of my name, my signature,
and suddenly I was feeling very described,
as Ed Dorn would say.
I am not making excuses here,
it is important for you
to understand this.
II
She was there
and then she was not there,
an aching hole only
when I gave enough attention
to my life for it to ache.
These sheets are not why
I don’t sleep, I have changed
them three times this week.
Still, I lie here, the bed empty
besides me, a pillow hugged
to my chest as though
the feathers were daggers
with which to murder awakeness.
III
I know nothing of violence.
Once, when I was fourteen, I shoved two
twelve year-olds—one with each hand!—
into the middle school
gymnasium stands.
They had been messing around
with my friend,
who was on crutches at the time.
He shuffled away from them
while I chased after him,
laughing maniacally.
It felt good, the way candy tasted.
Another time, I punched a kid
after he grabbed my shirt,
and we scrabbled for a minute,
wrestling on the floor.
After that, we were closer than before—
we shared a certain bond,
a commonality of experience.
Another gym class, I tripped
and hit my head very hard.
My eye swelled up so large
that other kids gasped
when I marched by
looking for my orange juice-
colored school bus.
All I wanted was sleep,
but they wouldn’t allow it—
someone slapped my face
so I would stay.
IV
The day I learned that my girlfriend
who was not my girlfriend
had fucked a boy in a far-off city
(she, too, in that far-off city),
I drove south on I-5
to gamble on horses.
It was June, eighty degrees,
a beautiful Seattle day—
a kind of divine reward for enduring
all those months of shitty gray.
I stood among sheaves
of discarded betting slips
while the air reeked
of spilt and stale beer,
and also the odor of compulsion,
and typed terse text messages.
I was calm as I detailed the precise sexual acts
I had performed while I was her boyfriend
but not her boyfriend.
She begged me to stop, but I kept on,
babbling and frightened
and violent.
V
Lately, I have been feeling less frightened,
but still there have been times
when I have fled otherwise salubrious
meals with friends, convinced at any moment
that a runaway bus might strike me dead
or that I would suffer some other
spontaneous death, my life snuffed out
in the amount of time it took
to swallow a crust of bruschetta.
Isn’t it true that the more pleasure
one experiences in life,
the more one begins to fear death?
VI
Would you believe me if I told you
that that idea comes from no philosopher or poet
but a professional cut man named Cus,
a man who wields gauze and iodine
to staunch his fighter’s blood?
***
Interested in submitting poetry to The Good Men Project? Check out our guidelines.
Like The Good Men Project on Facebook
Photo by United Nations Photo /Flickr