No Mercy

Leaving a three-hour poetry seminar at 9pm

Fingers webbed through pink bronzed knuckles

Unused pepper spray dangling from keychains

Eye contact made only with the buckles on my boots

A female Southern tendency already acquired

Followed by a shoulder glance every ten feet

Walking side by side, holding hands with the light poles

The realization that the spacing on the pink metal knuckles

Is intended for a man's hand,

Or a loophole law belt buckle

That if I hit anyone, or anything with them on,

I would break every bone in my four fingers

I retrieve a 3.5-inch pocketknife from my purse instead

Because there are restrictions of knife-carrying

On college campuses

But not assault riffles

Suddenly, I am transported back to Iowa,

Fourteen years old,

The kitchen stove sizzling in the kitchen

Pleading with my mother as she cooks dinner

To let me take the train to Chicago

To visit the Art Institute and go to a poetry slam;

God knows I need the culture

Cornfields and cattle pastures are not

Conducive to creativity,

She caves, on one condition:

She drives us to Leon's Gun and Pawn Store

To buy me a new pocketknife and bronzed knuckles

Sized perfectly for my tiny hands

Today, I have an entire dresser drawer in my bedroom

Filled with shiny pocketknives

Crusted in Jack-o'-lantern juices and dried cake icing

Intended, as she said, to cut the hay-bales open for the horses

We both know that hay-bales can be cut open with

Car keys, sharp nails, even teeth

Or a lifetime of weapons built upon her trust issues

Purchased for birthdays, holidays, and attending poetry slams

The metal detector buzzes in New Orleans when it hits my purse,

Nineteen years old,

My best friend, a military cop,

Secretly slid her handgun into my purse

When I left her house, unaccompanied

To wander New Orleans alone,

To listen to jazz in a bar off Frenchman street

And walk to buy a whiskey grilled-cheese sandwich

And finally, to House of Blues in the quarter for poetry

Mississippi and Louisiana are open-carry states

I know this

I know every law on weapons in every state I have ever visited

My mother ensured this

Security tells me to go put that thing in my fucking car

As if I have skipped two entire days of college courses

And drove three hours to murder my favorite living poet

Gibson recites a poem that night, entitled Orlando,

Drumming up reasons to have metal detectors at poetry readings

An alarm is wailing at a gay club in Pensacola, FL

Eighteen years old,

One month after the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando

The second deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11

My friend is five seconds away from kicking down the bathroom stall door

Screaming

The club music droning and beating behind the siren

"Please evacuate the facility. Your life is in danger. Exit immediately."

"Please evacuate the facility. Your life is in danger. Exit immediately."

My jeans are around my ankles as I slide the stall open

My friend has her girlfriend slung over her shoulder

And a handgun drawn from her waist holster

Every glass cup in the club is shattered on the floor

A mass of humanity fleeing out one exit

Half-naked, covered in dance sweat and glitter

On the phones with loved ones crying

Horrified at the idea of a copy-cat shooter

Instead, a false alarm

Triggered by burnt popcorn

No one is surprised when the club shuts down two months later

7AM in a crowded bar in Paris,

Twenty years old,

The smell of burnt coffee beans wafts into the street,

I have brought no weapons abroad with me,

Except my voice

I finish my espresso and close my journal,

I walk into the toilet,

A drunk man follows me in and pins me against a wall

One arm is against my throat and the other groping my ass

He is whispering what I assume are French obscenities

I have been in Paris for two hours

The only French words I know are bonjour and merci

I am screaming NO MERCI, NO MERCI, NO MERCI

On the top of my lungs

Screaming politely: NO THANK YOU, repeatedly

I dig the heel of my boot into the soft leather tops of his shoes

He lets out a scream as the bartender pushes the door open

I tell no one this story

Because I know they will blame me

Asking

Why I went alone

To drink espresso and write poetry

In a bar

The youth counselor tells us we are not to blame

Ten years old

She slides two candy bars and two cans of soda

Across her desk and introduces two police officers

They listen to us recite our stories

Behind confused and muffled sobs

My best friend asks what will happen to the man

She tells them he was our friend,

My mother seated behind us, interrupts

Screaming "no he was a pedophile"

My mother was among the group of concerned parents

When the school enrolled a dozen strangers

To visit the elementary classrooms monthly

And teach students about different occupations

Our fourth-grade class received a truck driver

We thought it was part of the program when he asked

For our telephone numbers;

We were too young to understand that grown men

Don't ask children when their parents aren't home

Six years later when my mother bought my first car

She put a truck-driver's steel tire thumper

In the front seat of my car and told me to use it

If a man ever tried to jump me-

A tire thumper is one of the few weapons

You can legally carry in a car.

Our shotguns rattle in the backseat of my father's pickup

Twelve years old

It has been a bad winter

The animals are starving to death

The coyotes are preying on the cattle dogs

And ripping apart the steel wire chicken coops with their teeth

It will be a hard spring if we lose anymore animals

Watching my dad track the pawprints in the snow

To their den under the railroad tracks

He taught me that other things could be weapons

Rocks, snares, a loud scream, even the farm dogs-

We stopped and listened to the birds

As our old Labrador came running through the brush

He taught me to listen for the bird's warning calls

And never go into the forest without a weapon

He cleaned and polished our guns that night

Before setting his again next to his bed

The metal steps to the front door on my RV creak from weight bearing down,

Twenty years old,

My cat jolts his head up at the noise and I set my novel down

Reaching for the youth-sized shot gun

Propped up on my nightstand by the bed

The gift from my mother when I moved away to college

An expensive prop collecting dust in my coat closet for two years

Unused

Untouched

Unloaded

Until last week when a Tinder date tried to rob me

A woman living alone is an easy target

So, they say-

Stealing my spare keys,

And coming back at night in hopes I was asleep

Not waiting with a gun and newly changed locks

The lock is jiggling on the door to our hotel in Amsterdam

Twenty years old

My friend has lost his key

Fallen asleep drunk at a bus station

Awoken with his passport and wallet stolen,

His American license and the exact change for one bus ticket

Left in the palm of his hand

Not raped

Not assaulted

Not harmed

Weaponless

A luxury.