The Assassin

I was always a child exhausting himself, watching

my dinosaurs in the dark until they moved, attacked.

The fine dust on the windowsill

crawled with existence,

and I was always trying to escape

real pain, not the kind where you tie the rope

secretly to a branch, make a noose,

and flirt with execution

like foreplay.

Cities of my youth were destroyed as planet

ground into deadly planet,

and all the terror of attics and cellars

found a place in my soul where

I held them, kept them cold. What I did

when I grew up was put them to work like war prisoners

until as many died

as my jurisdiction could reach,

so I could stand up inside myself,

proclaimed innocent, good.

And now I am, wherever I am,

in the place they pray you out of.

Quiet breather, here to stay,

blessed with nothing but peace.