Each step, as I walked away, was a bullet that killed my horse. |
I KILLED THE HORSE FOUR YEARS AGO My first attempt at Button Poetry This slam poem can be viewed on You Tube performed by the author https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohV1B9I-FA0 Written January 17, 2005 Edited May 9, 2015 I killed the horse four years ago. I walked away and never returned. Every step was a hit; each resounded fire in rapid succession, although I had walked slowly. Just as surely as if I had a gun, these steps had killed the horse four years ago . . . and I wasn't there to see her die-- and I wasn't there to see her fall stiff-legged to the ground. I wasn't there to see her ache and dread my no return; the empty lot where my car should have been; the gentle touch that never came, the garnet apples for the blood red mare that no longer grew on shade trees in the middle of the trail. I didn't hear her cry "Where is she?" "Where has she gone?" "Why has she forsaken me?" I did not see her prance the field and churn the ground back and forth and toss her head and roll her eyes and worry the fence what could have possibly happened to me--? I killed that horse four years ago; I walked away and never came back, leaving nothing in my wake. She could not even follow me with her eye much less her feet. My heels, like gun powder, my shoes the barrel of the deed-- the hole I left in the air shot through with bullets that hit home every time --her chest --her ruby legs --her trusting, ever-faithful, loyal heart. She screams at me now through vivid dreams and haunts my waking mind. I killed those sturdy twisting ears, ready to obey my every word; those wide brown loving eyes. The vet said they died of age but I know I killed them when I did not hold her just one last final time. I walked away and never returned. That walk, just as surely as if I had a gun, killed the horse four years ago-- And when she died, She walked away from me And she doesn't know it, but when she died, She took me with her, And just as surely as if she had a gun, Her death was the bullet that killed me. |