A moving speech or an endless stammer? My ears tremble 
and bleed. Shut up. Fashion your dogwood rifles and call 
it an homage. Shoot me in the mouth and tell me what 
beautiful words I speak. Your backs turn in perfect 
unison, under the false pretense that you gaze out of the 
wounds in your shoulder blades. Write your laws and 
amendments in a blood based ink. All rise, arm 
yourselves. Do you feel like a man? Can you kill me? Rip 
open my chest as a familiar gesture, you will find my 
heart to be impaled by two perpendicular lines. The ones 
you claim to honor. Welcome to God's country, set foot 
and be met with the taste of my shiny barrel. You are not 
my Christ. The only arms we need extend from our 
shoulders. Your throat is a cacophony. Silence. Leaden 
seeds bear trees with bitter fruit, thick with the stench 
of atonement. I would tell you to eat your words, but the 
bullets you wantonly send are much more suitable. God-
fearing family man, stop trying to recreate Him in your 
image. Go to sleep now with the knowledge that your 
beautiful gun has plunged a hole in the word of God and 
the face of your child. God-fearing family man. I implore 
your silence.