Moon Tooth

Forever on the first step
Eyes on the miles
Sunset roulette
Slot machine smiles

It’s always one more go
One bet
One spin
Then another night lost to the black brain grin

Midnight white in a moon-tooth sneer
A portrait of smoke making shapes in the mirror
Around every corner
Always in my ear
Like a long dead dinner bell
I can’t help but hear

Just another dark heart
Opaque veneer
Clouded by judgment, self-doubt, and fear
Could be a cancer, some past puppeteer
Could be that it’s easy to withdraw, disappear

And like the bouncing ball
helping children
along a song
The Cheshire smile
of suspect spirits
tempt my every move
With each day and month
each word and verse
my better and worse
instincts open wide
to shine those brilliant pearls into my pupils
and its up to me
to determine if they’re beaming
or blinding

A flashlight
or a furnace

Will I forge a new path on which to strive?
Or remain not quite dead, not quite alive?

I suppose the choice is paramount
I am my own
on which to count

And as always

it’s all

or nothing