bitter coffee and crumpled up cigarettes.

I punched a dragon once.
Kicked reason to the curb and took another long hit.
Too long. Way too long. Like waiting for a letter to arrive from a distant memory.
I hacked up a lung. The knife was too sharp. It cut away more than the pain from tomorrow.
"Pain builds character." - that's what they say.
But all I wonder is: " What's the exchange rate from pain to pennies? " cause strife simply doesn't pay the bills I've got for being alive.
"It'll all work out in the end..."
Who comes up with these expressions?
The end is now. The later is gone.
I take another sip of my bitter coffee - chasing away the dog that bit me the night before.
He drew first blood from the roads of life that traverse my arms.
I may be down, but I'm not out.
"So take another hit.
" Let's chase the dragon into the sunrise. "

Synaptic dispositions are the worst kind, don't you think? I mean, I never really got a say as to what my mind encodes and thereby what keeps me up at night. The brain is like a vast universe of flickering stars; each flicker is a synaptic connection firing across the manifold that is your mind. The problem is that most of the stars in my mind are already dead... much like those in the sky, I suppose. But that's really not the sort of thing that you ought to tell your kids.

Everything as planned.

We are destined, I think, for greater things. Yet youthful jitters rarely fecund. My thoughts stalk and my fingers enable. The 21rst century's version of suicide. You asked me once, "How is this all meant to end? "I whispered back casually, "With unfinished texts and emotional drive-bys" You smiled back and with intonational precision jeered: "Bring it on. I'm ready."