It won’t be a bullet

Danez SmithFiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2017

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Shades of Mortality

The speaker of the poem “it won’t be a bullet” poses two kinds of death, one from a bullet and one from a more predictable wasting away. It is likely Smith is referring to their own HIV diagnosis, which often causes people to lose weight and become “thinner & thinner & thinner” (Line 8); however, the speaker never states this directly. They may have made this choice because talking about the disease is still taboo and difficult to discuss openly. This tactic subtly hints at the ongoing stigmatization of STDs that devastated the gay community in the 1980s.

It is also possible that the speaker leaves the cause of death ambiguous in order to make the poem more relatable to those who will die from cancer or old age. People can die in many ways that a “doctor [can] explain” (Line 2) in advance and that a person would be able to “practice” (Line 3). By leaving the precise cause of death unspecified, Smith allows readers to imagine multiple scenarios and relate this poem to their own lives. All people must face their mortality in one way or another. Smith allows the poem to also be about mortality more generally.

Brutality and Labels

Smith draws a distinct line between two kinds of death. This binary puts emphasis on the dramatic distinction between a more peaceful death that one can “practice” for (Line 3) and have “explain[ed]” (Line 2) and the violent kind that denies the opportunity to prepare for individually and with their families.

Smith pointedly does not specify the circumstances that would cause them or others to die from a bullet, whether the gun is held by a police officer, a criminal, a gang member, or even oneself. This lack of context suggests that they expect readers to understand the disproportionate threat posed to African Americans from institutions legal or otherwise that engage in extrajudicial actions.

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The title “it won’t be a bullet” itself suggests that the poem will not be about a brutal kind of death. However, by describing the kind of death that the speaker expects to have, they are in effect showing the reader what they would lose if they were to be killed by a bullet. In several lines the speaker references the people who do die of gun violence. They say, “i’m not the kind of black man who dies on the news” (Line 7). Though they deny they will be killed by a bullet, they paradoxically put the bullet at the front of the reader’s attention. A writer cannot say what something is not without referencing the thing itself. So, while not getting killed by a bullet, the speaker expresses the fear of that very thing. It is about the danger they feel every day being a Black person in America.

Identity and Transience

The speaker of “it won’t be a bullet” recognizes themself as being part of several different communities, assuming the identity of African American, gay, and HIV positive. When Smith writes, “I’m not the kind of black man” (Line 7), they imply that “I am a certain kind of black man.” They give the reader a label to help them understand how to categorize, and also how not categorize, the speaker.

At the same time, the speaker defies labels. In the line, “ironic, predictable. look at me” (Line 6), they place two contradictory labels on themself for dying. The speaker is using single-word descriptions of themselves, “ironic,” and “predictable,” which minimize the pain and suffering of the speaker and those like them, and which reduce their situation to single-word judgments. However, in the very same breath, the speaker says, “look at me” (Line 6), which suggests they want the reader to perceive beyond labels, to connect with the totality of the person. That totality encompasses multiple identities, while they are more than those labels can describe.

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In the final line, when the speaker says their family will tell them “to go / toward myself” (Lines 10-11), they are suggesting that in death they will be able, finally, to escape the labels and become the totality of a self. In the context of the earlier line, where the speaker says that they will become “light” (Line 9), the term “myself” (Line 11) takes on two meanings. Now that the speaker has lost so much weight that they have become bodily light, to go towards “myself” (Line 11) means to go towards the light. At the same time, it means to go towards their individuality, which may now be and maybe always has been a kind of light. Like light, a personality or identity is hard to hold or contain in a label.