The act itself was shocking\u2014
\nthe bullet in the brain above
\nthe shades, the slow-moving
\nsea spreading breadthwise,
\nmanifest destiny away from
\nthe gray matter center. But
\nwhat struck me most was
\nnot the shot or the felled
\nman now face to face with
\nhis dead, ceiling-mirror self,
\nit was the moment just before
\nwhen he bet it all on black
\nand everything came up crows
\nor gold or freedom. This
\nmiserable man felt whole
\nfor a split second before
\nhis brain was split through.
\nThe bullet, a gift. A gift
\nthat meant he\u2019d never be
\nempty again, just gone.
\nFull and floating to some
\nland where every hand
\nis a heater and no one
\ncomes to cool you off.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The act itself was shocking\u2014 the bullet in the brain above the shades, the slow-moving sea spreading breadthwise, manifest destiny away from the gray matter center. But what struck me most was not the shot or the felled man now face to face with his dead, ceiling-mirror self, it was the moment just before when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[66],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-4iu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16522"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16523,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16522\/revisions\/16523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}