O.

I know what it is to be a weapon, dangerous 
in theory, accepted and forgiven in practice.
Your mouth, wet electric, a soft target
for aching bones, a feast for hungry hands,
it's almost as if we never spoke.
as if your face was only meant for silence.
I never called myself the hunter, only ghost 
left ruined by the body's rush.
It's a war I don't want to wage and yet
here we are- you the bystander, the city burning,
the soldier and the monk looking on,
I know what it is to be both,
the passenger to some ancient devil's gunshot,
the pulsing bacterial beat of a dying king,
if only for a moment. To be the neighbourhood after 
the riot. Both sides of the tape. The body on the street
and the ghost, weeping into the night.