The lonely hours,

after conversation died,

crawl through my ears;

a vacant, dead space.

 

Something shimmers,

ghosts just out of sight;

a chilling memory,

a phantom feeling,

or a brief hallucination.

 

The quiet hours,

where transport trucks pass,

filled with the tools to stupify a nation,

or the liquid to smother, choke, burn life.

 

The dead hours,

a piece of sanity chips away,

under the chisel of self-doubt,

falling down an endless drain,

leaking with earwigs, sewer bugs,

and all the poison memories

of the ones who got away.

 

Toxic aftermath,

an east-side story with west-side actors,

believe the hype, smoke and mirrors,

it's the best you'll get in the theatre of life.

 

The sound of fake birds thunder overhead,

above all of the fake mustangs and jaguars;

only the crunch of bone and pain is real now.