Gunshot Poem by Nicholas Peter

An explosion goes off in front of me,
loud as thunder and quick as lightning,
and it hits like a speeding locomotive.

The wound rips through the chest,
exposing tissue, sinew, muscle,
ribcage, lung,
and heart.

It is dripping,
a sanguine waterfall,
that pours our red,
a liquid of memory and phobia,
falling down to stomach,
crotch,
thigh,
and foot.

I feel myself begin to fall,
but where will I go?
Surely the stone-cold concrete,
is not an end.

Will I go to paradise?
To suffering?
Or maybe the sheer utter blackness,
of pure nothing?
All of it is possible.

I hit the ground,
and there is no pain,
other than a dull sting in my chest,
which emanates from the bullet-hole,
that was once filled with life,
and the floor and I,
become one and cold together.

Maybe, after all this, I will blossom 10,00 years,
in the Kingdoms of Heaven?
Or Maybe I will rot 10,000 years,
in the mud-pits of Hell?
Who knows,
I don't.

Question upon question,
but it doesn't matter,
because the world is looking flatter,
from my coffin-on-the-ground perspective.

Maybe I'll be a tree,
a little oak grown from a grave,
out of my gunshot wound,
this being the fate that won the afterlife,
out of all the others.