The dull thud in his chest beat slowly over and over and the echo of shattered eternities dripped slowly from the corners of his bloodshot eyes and tears made of turpentine crawled down his cheek leaving behind the memories of what once was in slow moving pictures made of ash and smoke and the embers danced their last steps in the dying flames of things that would not be again and he choked it all down as he tried to hold it all in and he buried it all and he caged it all up and he chained it all down and he clipped the wings and he poured himself a mixture of gasoline and blood and whiskey and pain and misery and a small dose of **** it and he stirred it all up in his skull full of dead dreams and poured it down his wheezing throat and swallowed hard and long and it hit his gut and sank into the hollow places of his bones and for a moment the thud in his chest stopped and he smiled briefly and then slowly the dull thud in his chest began again and he could hear it under all the dirt and from inside the cage wrapped in chains and bleeding from where its wings had once been and everything hurt and it all hit him at once and everything poured back out and he found strange comfort swimming in the misery of it all and he saw the beauty within suffering  and then realized the truth of why the caged heart sings