What thoughts possess

A man condemned

As plodding footfalls form final march?

Does deep in his own wretched heart linger

A despicable, unutterable wish

For shorter boards

And fewer steps?

Is the sentence of to death

Or to suffer the curs'd knowledge

That one's death is imminent?

Man, the impregnable beast

Bends to no will but his own

And the puissant, enceinte pull

Of dreadful impatience

Was it not Hitchcock who said

Explode a bomb and have them fixated for a second;

Tell them a bomb will explode

And have their attention

For the whole duration

Perhaps.

But I do know for certain

You have my attention.

So why is there hot, pulsating blood

Pounding just below the aching surface

Of my ear

Irritated by a ticking that does not exist

From a bomb of my imagination?

Why do I feel

Every drop of coarse, biting sand

As it falls from diminished glass

And splashes across tender cheeks

Making mud against

These spattered, salty tears

The judgement of the fates, seal'd

Our tale wrote on each passing star

Burning brightly, it streaks

Across the frigid winter's sky

Only to fade into death's obscurity

And how am I to take this burden

This dreadful connaissance I cannot bear

That our days do dwindle

That our hearts will wither

That one embrace soon shall be our last

And we will know, both of us

In that one, agonizing moment

Unspoken, unacknowledged, but unmistakable

That we are never to speak again

And for to wonder, am I damn'd

For to keep in my sunken heart

A wish cannot be spoken

A desire lost in shame

For our greetings to be made fewer

And the hours pared to minutes

What difference rendered

By "goodbye" today

Or "goodbye" tomorrow

It is still a word too painful

To sputter through trembling lips

If our days be numbered

Let them be numbered short

And thus, the pain grow short as well

For a verdict of a hundred lashes

I beg them served concurrently

And let my misery be out

All at once

I do not lie still.

As pestilence does ravage my flesh

I cannot submit.

As incontinence makes mealworms of my mind

I will not be silenced.

As dread permeates my soul

If I am to choose

Betwixt two deaths:

Now and Later

I shall decide always on

The Now!