MACHINE 

​

~Sam Kotlarz 

​

I am a soulless machine

Left only watching as my exoskeleton lurches along the track.

This shell of sheet metal is never thick enough to cover the hollow inside.

They say I have traveled far

Yet I never see the mile markers.

 

They call me the best.

Why do I only see the worst?

They tell me I have succeeded.

This is not what success feels like.

All I can see is the damage I've caused to the path I traveled--

These craters and bloodstains that I leave in my wake,

The jagged cracks in the earth, each more fractured than the last.

The journey ahead begins to resemble the one I left behind.

The bridges I built to cross these trenches barely supporting my weight.

 

Each day my pace only slows.

The minutes drag on forever.

The metallic click of my gears grows quieter.

The rust begins to groan and ache

With a sickening cough. My engine sputters out--

 

I add more fuel but the fire never burns quite as bright.

I pour the memories into the furnace,

The flames consume them leaving nothing but ashes--

In the dim glow of the embers I make out the silhouette of what they used to be--

​

There they stare back at me,

Echoes of a life I wasted.

A life spent hurting others,

A life I could never fix. 

As I continue, the memories blow away in the wind

Leaving nothing but the bitter taste of smoke in my mouth--

It serves as my last reminder of why I started moving at all.