Smoke and Mirrors

Quietly commiserating with his keyboard
quick strokes,
rhythmic like a beating heart.
Pain drips from bloody fingertips and poison lips
that curse this silent screen.
Thoughts flickering between the tear-blurred letters.
Your smile's sharp, like a razor, cuts.
Your laughter shrieks within my mind, howling like some foul lust,
torment trapped alone in an empty grave.
The words come quick to his bitter mind,
while the clicking keys keep rhythmic time
to a sad and empty serenade
what once was lovely now shall fade.
Yet in his softly stirring sorrowed soul, something simple soon takes hold,
some foolish hope hanging thick in the air,
like noise and smoke and flowers in her hair.
These headlights hang like broken halos,
shine salvation o'er these broken streets.
In a bar so drowned in sweat and clamor
you lose your thoughts but it's there that you find peace.
At 2AM you stumble home, set your fingers moving, bloodied down to the bone.
Hear the keys click, like a timer ticking, counting away to something new,
some mystery of insanity. A last grasp struggle, tugging at his soul.
The liquor pours and it flows like air,
he'll breathe it in deep, gone too far to care.
He sighs, the mirror feeds him lies, dripping crimson, shows evil in his eyes.
But the truth is hidden, somewhere between the lines
that outline glassy, bloodshot eyes.
While in the moonlight, hope, it disappears,
filled in with bitter and darkened fears.
The words they blur and run together, sentences amble along, some lazy river of thought and deed wander aimless under guise of destiny.
They'll wind up broken, less than useless, ruthless truth uprooting all you've done.
All thought steadily fading, whole mind corrupted, hating
Trading truth for lies in this darkened room where either passes
Illuminated in fits and flashes.
Smoke builds up 'til you can't breathe, can't concentrate, but cannot leave.
Sad, like the epilogue to some grand story,
finally alive in purgatory,
like a dream that fades 'fore you can sleep,
or a life so sad you can't even weep.
How time ticks on, from now until it ends, then silent, embrace oblivion.
So he ends all with a question mark.
An inferno sprung from a simple spark.
A teardrop adding to a lake.
Lying to yourself for sanity's sake.
Parentheses in an obituary,
an aside to life, unnecessary.
Watch truth fade out like a passing trend,
A scattered, hopeless, empty end,
when silence is a cherished friend.
All the words you find to hide behind, thesaurus walls, language lies.
They'll pass away, security fades,
face to face you face the day.
Exposed and empty, empty-minded,
Lost and lonely, a fool you're blinded.
Called to nothing, come from less, a hollow man, a shadowed mess.
These words remain, the screen reads clear,
the keyboard symphony still rings in my ears.
These thoughts are all you've left here,
to prove your existence is more than smoke and mirrors.