This is the beginning of the end.

There are no cracks in the concrete or
debris plummeting to the ground,
But the blood red sun is going down
and a single car alarm has begun to sound.

A desperate artist resorts to his very last
plan and sprays his name on a wall.
He wants to be remembered, looked at with awe
even for the brief moment before everything falls.

And the cats who own the street can’t
help but paw at the doors that line
their kingdom, scratching until they shine,
for someone to once again, make them feel alive.

A business man cries in his office,
writing the last words in his letters:
one to his wife, and another to his lover,
then opens his window and becomes the jumper.

And now the structures begin to shake
and glass falls to the ground: deadly rain.
The cars are honking, completely still in their lanes
and hardly anyone feels the pain;

Aside from a child who had no home
who now holds a shard in his loving embrace
warmed with blood, peace seeping from his face
and so he dies, body lined with red lace.

The cross in a church shatters to pieces
its splinters become a crown of thorns
all across the recently cleaned floors
beautifully adorning those who mourn.

Children are tucked into bed for the last time,
the preacher’s daughter commits her last crime.
and the lovers make love sublime
unaware of the of the ghosts at their sides.

Finally all the worlds are one,
the mother reunites with her beloved son.
The naive who remain find their own guns
realizing there is no place left to run.

The years behind now a whisper of a breath,
the years ahead, an endless death.
Life eternal has no end
but at last, the boy with the glass has a friend.