Behind my open eyes, I’m taking pictures of the lightning.

You see, I’ve got pitch-perfect timing, the shutter speed

Of eyelashes fluttering, stuttering through a thousand flashes.

 

And all the ribbons of this clacking typewriter in my ribcage

Spin faster than aging, ink hammers exploding,

Pumping blood just like it’s flooding.

 

So I pull back the curtained skyline, tear the North Star from its system

And grip it till it trembles, tremors shimmering like fool’s gold,

The cold charm of blindfolding a supernova in slow motion,

Surging through the paper-thin skin of my grasp into the bloodstream.

 

They say it’s not enough to have this engine

Raging in my iron bones,

But I’m so full of green lights, I’ve got Gatsby in my vision,

New York printed in my vein lines,

And I’m showing no signs of stopping,

For like that shining city, you know I will never sleep.

 

‘Cause this bonfire’s been howling, synapses hyper in the sparking,

Sending signals like embers

From my thoughts into the evening,

Till they burn from all this dreaming, decades in the making,

Taking laps around the circuits in my hands

As they seize lightning,

Rope it down and crack it open ’til I find the silver lining,

Write this poem before it blinds me, then rewind to the beginning.

 

Though these words may be my ending,

They may also be my living,

For that’s what passions do, they claim your life,

Like fire you just can’t take them lightly.

So let them course through every brainwave,

Even after my touchscreen flatlines,

‘Cause in ten thousand years, this typist will still be typing,

Writing on the pages of forever, etching metaphors for glory.

 

Till then, my lens is calling to open my eyes a little wider,

To fill my teeth with every whirlwind of dusk

And all this lightning, palms ready for thunder.