Clockwork

He was a merchant of watches. Eyes fixated, one on a stock ticker, the other hawking cops. Banking on bad investments, worshiping false profits: substituting dead men for a living God.
He felt his time was coming, every minute detail replaying nightly in his subconscious. Guilty as a dog: barked up the wrong tree and bit off more than he could swallow. That's why he sold watches- he always felt like he could keep extra time on his hands, somehow hoping to survive beyond his own fatalistic conception.
A suit-clad fox approached, prowling down the block. He knew how to find his higher power, his kept his name inscribed on his arms. 20 dollars was all he needed, to meet his spirit in the sky; he could see it in her eyes.
"Follow me miss, I have something special for pretty ladies like you." He guided her down an alley, mistaking her resistance for lethargy. As he took his jangling jacket off she drew her snub 32 and shot him in the heart.
He hit the ground before his jacket dropped. All he could feel was a seething warmth encapsulating his soul. He expected the light to come next, but only found a
finite darkness falling over his periphery. His body grew colder. He touched his chest and saw his own thick blood swallow his finger, that was when he realized all the watches in the world wouldn't afford him a second longer. Slowly his eyes closed, hoping for a second chance.
But second chances are hard to come by, and his first impression left its mark.

The end.

Notebook

I'm looking back
wondering what the fuck
happened?

Had-not snapshot captions
litter nothingness across my collective memory,
dripping concrete casts onto shards
of long, forgotten occurrences.

Anger festers on,
rotting away the fear.
I hear it roaring off in the distance.
Replaying xylophonic years

attuned to an instant.
My mother told me to give it to God.

I still haven't finished psalms
that have been written in my palms
since my fingers printed.

Let it burn

Forever,

your summer soothes my soul
in perpetuum.
You melt my sleep schedule,
only you.

Sun-stars-moon,
set and rise through my blue skies.
You knew how to fly before we met.

I can't be your superman,
but I can protect you with my life-
I'd gladly give it all.

I'm betting a lifetime on five months,
and don't intend to lose.
Substance of my holy holies-
true love.

I'm going to change your last name
to mine: a diamond, for two.

You overlooked my flaws
after I showed you them all.
Thank God for listening.

I wrote your name under my arm
to keep you by my side.
You wont ever fall
anywhere beyond my reach.

These arms of mine
wont drop the catch of eternity.
Burn in me.

Emphesema

The respirator hummed
like a shadow giving up its ghost.
It sits, unplugged:
the respirator hummed.
Silence-succumbed:
a parasite, deprived of host;
the respirator hummed,
like a shadow giving up its ghost.

Sleep

I have recurring nightmares. The same scenarios repeat themselves every time:

I am confronted by my regrets
of the depths of hell.
My friends can't be saved,
no matter how many I kill.
I'm filling everything in sight with lead.
It comes naturally.
Death, sketched in chrome.
This is what I was bred for.
I'll put a smile on your face without a joke,
but wouldn't dare animate my own.

I find myself in a dimly-lit bedroom,
not unlike the one I slept in, as a child.
Some apparition calls me closer.
I don't recognize this woman.
"What do you want?"
You already know.
"Who are you?"
You don't remember.

I've been trying so hard,
to say goodbye to yesterday,
but it lingers onto tomorrow.
Progression is devolving,
revolving, around me,
as I two-step to the steam whistle
screaming in my subconscious.
I am free falling through second chances,
never finding one to hold on to.

I got shot.
But I did not face my fear,
I embraced it.
Realizing every time had its instant,
I saw mine to be fast approaching.
I sat propped up against a wall
in some broke dopedealer's home,
those two motherfuckers whose heads I blew off
are staining my shelltoes red.
I never felt so lonely,
but I guess that was to be expected.
I smiled,
might as well give em something to remember me by.
I held onto my beloved Beretta,
until I had to let go.
Silence fell like snowflakes in July.

I don't think I'm going crazy. Though I might be losing my mind, according to my own accord, my understanding thereof may give away my own lies. I only speak the truth, but what of sight?

Clockwork

He drug himself along the corridor like a sloppily slaughtered livestock- shot through the eyes. His own blood eased the friction between the hardwood floor and his limp-beaten legs. What should have been a humane death was drawn out into a torturous demise.

I stepped over him to put him out of his misery. His eyes met mine with a look of surrender to the impossible, forcefully abdicated to his own mortality. My eye died like it so often did in times like these, losing it's life along the eight-and-a-half inches of chrome between animation and death. I felt his life in my hands: his birth, his upbringing, and, most imporantly, his future, short though it may be.

Time travel has yet to be discovered, but manipulation of temporal lineation has been a hallmark of human society for millenia.

The guttural rattle emanating from the depths of his throat was a sure sign of looming finality. I was allowing him time for any last penance. God knows most of us don't remember his name. He was bleeding from his eyes, crying satan from his inner soul.

Silencer speak softly. I pulled the trigger slowly, my pointer finger melting into it's metallic home. Only the recoil of the hammer and the light at the end of the barrel broke the hypnotic hold of darkness. He finally fell to the floor, baptising himself in his own brains and blood.

He was the only friend I had.

It was just business.

Every-body's gotta eat.

Home

I was holding back tears
reading a poem.
I guess it's true what they say
about home.

Mine was broken by those closest to me;
I don't hold it against em though.

We move on,
grow distant,
and older.
I'm stronger now.

Lift by my lonesome.
No spotter.
I learned when to give it up,
from experience.

Felt it fall on my chest,
and had to get it off me.

I can tell you some stories,
but I don't lie.
They still make me choke up
sometimes.

This is how men should show their feelings.
Show they can give a damn enough
to struggle, and to deal with it.

I am my own man.
You know this.
Teary falter,
but none fall.

I'm still living.
All you need is
hope.

Which goes against my very nature,
but I don't look like either of my parents.
Glitch in the matrix- system overload.

Overdosed and saw the grace of God
reflected in an Angel.

I don't need this dope no 'mo.
I hope.
So help me.

I was thinking about making a new home,
where my children wouldn't need to paint their faces
to go through their daily motions,

or almost break down in front of a bunch of strangers
they didn't know.