8:51

8:51 stares dead-man-unbroken into the back of my eyes,  
flashing its electronic message in jagged blinks.  
Medicine spoons rattle in their draws in response  
to my pattering of feet, eager as the devil.  
The air carries traces of decay; if you dared to follow  
along glass stems dotted with saliva's braille,  
beside blood smearing the bruised horizon,  
you'd see the death in every morning.  
I prefer not to look.  
 
Rock and Roll drums a heavy beat into the walls,  
blaring out into the beaks of song birds.  
They're all singing the same old truth.  
Singing of the child with the hopeless eyes  
with the feet that ran the worn path to nowhere.  
Who built his kingdom out of the knowledge he gained  
from story books, only to light the match and burn it down;  
bedtime grieving covered in money signs and blotched with stress.  
The clock tick tocks louder, and louder, and louder,  
until only silence remains.  
 
8:52 I skip the spoon and go for the bottle, sinking into the day.  
Thoughtlessly I slip into my persona with a sigh;  
smiling, laughing, but not being.  
Just the way I should be.