SECOND AMENDMENT LULLABY
- Dark Poets Club
- Jan 30
- 1 min read
By Tim Reaper
In this country, we inherit metal
the way others inherit cheekbones—
a birthright you can hold,
cold and certain,
with your finger resting on the future.
They call it freedom
and hand it to you
in a cardboard coffin,
foam cut to fit the shape of a decision
you can’t take back.
The classrooms rehearse lockdowns
like hymns.
Small hands learn the grammar of hiding:
corner, silence,
the holy text of don’t move.
On the news, grief is weather—
rolling in, expected,
measured in bodies per minute.
Thoughts and prayers
are blank rounds fired into the sky
to keep the guilt from landing.
Somewhere a safe clicks shut
like a mouth.
Somewhere a slogan smiles
and sells you safety
with a muzzle.
The right to bear arms, they say—
as if the arms aren’t children’s,
as if the bear isn’t hunger,
as if the trigger isn’t a small door
everyone keeps pretending is bolted.