Christophe Beck Follow

He stood in the road outside of town
With a broken clockwork toy in his hand
A graveyard for childish dreams in his palm
A broken lifeline

Big nothing

The mechanical amusement sputtered in his fist
As he clenched, it whirred and died again
It was a cowboy who drew his gun

But the pistol was welded to the holster
By age and careless children
So it struggled and strained
And it unwound his own spring

Big nothing

He didn't need tattoos to show where he had been
And who he had loved
It was the same thing that men had cried for
That women had dyed their hair for
The cellophane illusion of a starry sky
Stretched over an open sore

Big nothing

He thought about his lost daughter
The way her eyes would alight
At the greedy circus barker's blackmail song
How he wanted to smash her skull
When she parroted back, "Tell mommy, tell poppy
You need this little dolly"

Big nothing
Big nothing

The smoky voice of the petaled girl
Woke him long enough
There was too much light in the room
So he unscrewed the bulb
She took him to bed like an adopted dog

Big nothing

She lit sickly incense, as he tried to tell
If the resemblance as pure and coincidental
He unleashed his grip on the toy
All it meant to him and it wound down forever

Big nothing

He woke up in a sweat the next day
With her smile still painted on his mouth
He walked out of a town called Big Nothing

Big nothing
Big nothing
Big nothing
Big nothing

He stood in the road outside of town