Fresh Meat

This is the line I’m in
That’s all I know
Seemingly innocuous
One foot
Other foot
One step
Next step
I keep wondering what waits
Behind the doors
I can’t see past everyone
Already proceeding forward
I feel worthless
A new and old stagnant drone
Pressing against the ones ahead
So you can catch my face
One step
Next step
I keep praying that I look right
For whatever this could be
I need this chance
I know this is going
Somewhere
That’s when the bolt pistol
Blasts nasty
Through the back of my head
I’m stunned and vacant
I keep pushing into the dark
I keep praying this mechanism saves me
One step
Next step
I’m blank today
I’m the carbon copy worker/soldier/slave
That you just might toss a bone
When you’re chains crush my ankles
And hoist me off to
Zero
I smell the blood
I taste the iron
But I’m too numb now
I’m too desperate
My head is vestigial
My heart has no voice
Was it a power tie and a six digit suit
Or a hard hat and white sterile cover-alls
That ushered my exsanguinations
Was it a pen or a blade
That hastily ravaged my arteries

-Joshua Fink