Dancing Shadows

Staring down the smooth metal,

The open mouth of a nightmare

That I'm used to slipping my tongue

Inside to taste the smoke of this sin,

The permanence of foolishness

Stares into the voided loneliness

That was once a warm, robust soul.

.

I'm two steps too far into the dream

For skeleton fingers to pull me down.

I'm too hungry to starve on these

Watered-down, thinned-out feelings.

I'll take the wobbling holographic dinner

Over the bleeding gums of my dreams,

The gun crying for me, any day.

.

The weapon weeps and I stand firm,

Stuck between the noose of branches

Coiling around my neck in pursuit

Of painting me in pretty purples and blues

And realizing their own little dream.

They want to turn me into muddy pieces

So I'll wash away down the river easily.

.

I am twenty-six years too early for my debt

To be ripped from my flesh and thrown

Into the pit of all my accumulated misbeliefs.

And yet, I can taste the pleasure of the shadows

On the bowl of my tongue like rotten fruit

Because the shadows have finally come to life.

And now the metal warps as they dance.