II. A Game of Chess (Stanza 7)

When she came in uniform, he said—
“I missed you so, something wasn’t right without you”
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS, GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
“Make yourself useful, the floor’s dirty”
So she spat on it and held back the tears
She held for eight months
“There’s dirt underneath your fingernails”
She called him a failure for not finding a job
And he replied that he didn’t need one
If there were no kids to take care of.
She spit again, in the sink this time.
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS, GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
She sat at the window
Behind a desk
And watched the leaves fall
One by one until the earth had a blanket
But she was cold.
“We’re not getting any younger"
Why would she want another version of herself,
Sad and hollow and small.
“A figure like that can’t support a baby”
He speaks to her bones.
He bursts in the door every 2 A.M.,
Slurring words and stenches of cheap perfume,
He bleeds guilt but feels nothing.
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS, GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
“I need a real woman”
A ring on the finger but no children
To bear a concoction of your features,
An unfulfilled prophecy; selfish.
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
GUNS AREN’T FOR GIRLS
Goodbye captain. Goodbye sergeant. Goodbye lieutenant. Goodbye.
Farewell. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Goodbye gentlemen, goodbye brothers, goodbye, goodbye.