The Murderer of Youth

I blink as the warmth enters my eyes

A liquid warmth, thick and blinding

I lick my lips as it enters my mouth

This liquid metal, redundant in my body

Heavy, essential, falling from my jaw

Each drop adding to the puddle

Each drop taking from my life

All is silent yet I only see chaos

I can make no effort to change my surroundings

The first face I saw in this life appears

She screams but I hear her not

I am but a body with a fading soul

I replay my life as I lay in its destruction

The smell of fire, the flashing lights

Family bonfires and the Fourth of July

Now the good is spoiled and rotten

Memories are wet with the blood of the accident

My heart aches from the reminiscing

I still do not feel the pain of the bleeding

I look toward the faces who have seen horror

The horror is unseen by me, unfelt by me

An object falls from my unclenching hand

The slow motion rattle to the ground draws eyes

With the drop, the killer is revealed

The murderer is red in the center of witnesses

It's his eleventh kill today 

I close my eyes as everything fades

The last I hear is, “she was typing ‘Okay’”