Nightmare Machine

i.

every night i

run and run and run

every night

is a life or death race

every night

is a different cell block

another face

in a different chase

every night

is a journey against my will

every night

forced to face my myriad fears

and very night

i hear the strangers

their scorn

derision and their jeers

this organically

fueled nightmare machine

it feeds on the minds

and meat of men

it takes everything

that could have been

as it shapes each little if

into a possible when

every night

is a sweat drenched journey

only to wake

on the morrow just gasping

ethereal realness

drips through my waking fingers

a slip of the grip

left from grasping

ii.

i have felt my neck stretched

from being hung

i have ridden the lightning

in the chair

i have died countless times

on many freeways

i have felt twisted steel

puncture vital organs there

i have been shot

and i have been strangled,

i have been bludgeoned

and beaten to death

i have been drowned

i have been burnt

i have been all that i’ve seen

and i will curse it to my very last breath

i have been broken

into many tiny fragile pieces

i have been smashed

upon the rocks from way up high

i have been and i have seen

this hellish nightmare machine

i have been shown

that there’s a million or more ways to die