Electric

There is a clock ticking from somewhere deep inside him. She can feel it. At first listen, it was almost in tune with his heartbeat, just a fraction of a moment off. She feels it now, can almost see it beating from within him. How could she have mistaken it for a heartbeat? The shifting, mechanized sounds from every part of him. He exudes this mechanical life. How could she have been so foolish to assume him to be human? Of course he is a machine, the smallest movement of his arms is accompanied by a defeaning groan of metal grinding against metal. The slightest stress placed upon his shoulders result in a perfected breakdown. How did she miss it? The roar of his joints, needing to be oiled, is deafening. The ticking of his would-be heart is tearing into her ears, blasting through her mind. She has realized it too late

Piles of ash next to a broken body. The wail begins as less than a thought, an unconscious choice, torn from deep within, rushing through the body, overtaking all senses as an obliterating sound of pain. The world will stop for this one second; bearing witness to the pain it has caused. For that one moment, everyone on the planet is forced to stop and become aware of what they have done, the monsters they have made and the innocents they have slain. The moment will end, and they will turn back to the brightly-colored cereal boxes and the sugary toys.

I’ll drop out of the sky, soar across oceans, plummet to the ground and smash with breathtaking force. Fragments of mind and body settling around me, I’ll smile at the wind, grin at the stars, and scream until I laugh at the absurdity. Just as long as you’re there to see.

He, with his questioning eyes watch my ascent into my mind. He watches, confused as I am consumed with the fires and brimstone falling around me, of the falling cities and the screaming children. His eyes gloss over the pain and blood, only wondering why I am not coming to him, giving him what he wants, why I ask, scream, beg for the savior we need. The beautiful people walk around with sunglasses covering their eyes as the world crumples in pain. The burning buildings fall in pieces, and they smile and walk around the rubble. The day the glasses are removed, they will wish for the simplicity the glasses provided, they will beg to go back to the familiar ignorance of the terrors and crushing stone, and once they find they cannot go back, cannot unsee what has been seen, they will fall into their once unoccupied minds and wonder why the ones they used to love are watching them with questioning eyes

Small hands tracing the dust on a pane of glass, shattered realizations falling into place alongside the despair. There’s nothing here for her now, without him. He and his great hands that create, his lips that taste and words that soothe. His body that fit. It always shocked her how well he fit to her, his brain seeming to wrap around hers, fibers combining and neurons jumping between the space of two. Now there is just dead noise. 

The hungry eyes of the starving see through everything we pretend to be. Our desire to help, but our lack of emotion. Our untaken initiatives and our expectation of gratification without effort. We see them and smile, explaining we couldn’t possibly help them now, we have so many things to do, and isn’t it their own fault for having so many children? The hungry and dying loathe our smiles and excuses, they do not care for our reasons.

Under the paper-thin surface of light you call skin, past the shadows of veins and blood. Deeper than the cinderblocks you’ve built up, past the swirling abyss of a mind infused with infinity. 

She falls over the past, tripping through time and plummeting into the sounds of infinity with nothing but that little square to tether her to the atmosphere

Those biting teeth surrounding the trees and falling from the stars, breaking badness and bringing finite seconds of clarity

Black nails scratching a glass pane, tracing dust and cracked smiles reflected from her face onto his. He’s so brave to be so close