Then he was tired of hurling himself
against the flashing, jingling cage of the city,
the important, empty people squirming in it,
the orange night skies and broken moons,
the towering honeycombs of light.
He knew now, his gnawed mind was numb, and he was
tired.
Hope died at last, and it always does die
last, slipping into the silent shadows.
Fear, of course, was then set free,
soaring into a terrible tranquility.
While he killed himself,
he sneered.
This pain was not death.
This suffocation, this strangulation
was not death. For death did not hurt.
This was life,
always life.
But this was the last pain that life could deal him,
and that was what he knew
before he ceased to know.
