James Diaz
Gunshot Won’t Fix It
my friend takes us down the road in his truck a little too fast
talking about doing himself in
me, I’m still wanting to live
calls me on x-mas eve
says he’s cradling a shotgun
and some dark thoughts
to which I say “I’m coming over,
you shouldn’t be alone right now”,
he’s awful hard on himself
as if getting clean
isn’t in fact one of the bravest things
he’s ever done
I try hard to build him back up
you must have been worn down like this before
to know how much it matters that we at least try
to stop a compromised tree from falling
throw love at least as hard as you’ve thrown hate
when you get that call
say “i’m coming over,”
even if the ride back almost kills you.
James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) and editor of the forthcoming anthology What Keeps us Here: Songs from The Other Side of Trauma (Anti-Heroin Chic Press, 2018). In 2016 he founded the online literary arts and music journal Anti-Heroin Chic to provide a platform for often unheard voices, including those struggling with addiction, mental illness and Prison/confinement. He resides in upstate New York, in between balanced rocks and horse farms. He has never believed in anything as strongly as he does the power of poetry to help heal a shattered life.
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