bright as yellow

by David Schrott

_______________

Time has had its way with me, my broken, tired hands can’t build a thing…

Coffee’s a murdering bitch, you know? It started with the arrhythmias, sometime in Oh-Three. They were added frustration on top of everything else: photo-synthesis, the commute, the roommate. Only she was my safe haven. Nothing more.

The idol of my days has won, the empty I have fed has made me numb…

It got worse sometime in the spring. A resting heart-rate under fifty is beautiful but not, when because, the ventricular muscle is shutting itself off every ten seconds. Thirty beats, maybe. Death was imminent one of these nights. You knew it. Falling asleep was hard and staying there even worse.  Three hours a night was a good sleep. The contractions knifed from pectoral to shoulder-blade. Shallow breaths and bad dreams. Would I see her one more time before I was snuffed out and cast to Hades?

She was no Saviour — no matter how much you wanted her to be.

Save the nights your hollow dreams revealed the sweet release of death…

A scant twenty hours ago this idol was threatened. Despair sweeps in, rustling restlessness from its slumber while six-dollar nicotine bathes your grey lungs at eighty-five-miles-per-hour. The interstate is clear and the wash of sleep still seems so far away. To-morrow is ruined. Who cares about to-morow – what about to-night? Will it ever expire?

In the emptiness of broken flesh, the mercy of the thorns…

Along the river. Finally. This is where you wanted to be from the get-go. It only took ninety minutes of frantic free-way driving to find a place only a mile from home, if that. One more smoke while you let Him have it. Trust is your flaw; at least with this man-made god. It becomes so weak that the vapid space in your chest now desires to cease its rhythmic ticking. The near fatal flaw of six years ago would be a welcome addition right about now. The cherry draws near and you’re out of words. Soon there will be peace and welcome sleep.

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