An Incomplete List of Things the Gunshot Wound on Top of My Head Has Looked Like Over the Past Five Years

An indent
the depth of 
a peppermint 
candy being held 
long-ways. The 
Picasso painting
Portrait of a Holey
Head. A skin tone
colored caterpillar
with silver stripes
that was viciously mauled with a tiny
hammer, then forgotten about. A long
pink fleshy line with a crater at its
center, like a dried up river that once
fed a lake, then continued as a river on
the other side. The inverted top
bun to one of those
miniature gummy
hamburgers. The
thumb hole of a
bowling ball
filled up most
of the way with
sand. The back
of an underfed
cow. Sort of
like this.

Paper Staple

The bullet ripped 
through our dorm, tearing up 
drywall like the paper 
staple trick students execute 
when they forget to print 
out an essay until right before 
it’s due, two whole rooms 
were muscled through 
before the projectile reached 
my head, both occupied by my 
good friends, though one did pull 
the trigger, now we’re tethered 
together forever, me, my friends, that old 
dormitory, our corners have been hastily 
folded over to the point where whenever 
I feel a gentle pain, a tug I can’t quite 
place, I know it has to be one of them
again, thumbing through the pages