I have resigned myself to this;
time stretching onwards a pale weak grey like that of a dove, promising peace
-- sod your peace, after all, heaven is a place where nothing ever happens --
-- heaven is Las Vegas -- everything and nothing all at once,
and around the corner of my hesitation
comes a voice as lifeless and mutilated as the rest of me:
"shut up and live."

I have walked unshoon through dust-choked wastelands
where they strung belief and imagination up
from the flagpoles, by their throats
and burned all our dreams to light up
a night grittier than a mouthful of gravel in a desert.
tracing my tracks and trails by the bloodprints
left by bare soles lacerated by shattered dreams underfoot.
"just shut up and live."

I have dreams, curiosities, wondering too deeply
what the last moment on Earth would be like,
what it would take to breathe through the end
and run face-first into oblivion or whatever's beyond it.
I sicken, and weaken, and wake up gagging on my own sweat
and the echoes of a voice made harsh by dysagapi:
"shut up and live".