The Checkout Girl

Seconds move as hours,
Hours as days,
Continuous bleeps pierce the re-circulated air,
A background drone of autopilot lives.
Eyes stare vacant.
Monotony stales.
A thousand souls, ignorant, walk by,
Sapping her being, a piece at a time.
She dreamed.
She hoped.
But to no avail,
Uniform uniforms of societies failed.

Sighing like clockwork,
What If?
Could I?
Fill her deadened, rusted mind.
The only relief, is the time stamp to end,
Another day, marked off as done.
Never to return, no memories made,
She drifts under starlight she'll never see,
Urban landscapes, blacken her soul.
Disappointment consumes,
Tears freely fall,
Their tributaries spill to the shadows beyond
The asphalt river she follows each time -
Last time.

Self imprisonment between stucco walls,
Aspirations died with innocent youth.
A TV dinner her only comfort no more,
Watching beautiful artifice of a false world.
Why not me?
What could I have done?
Life's inequality spurring her on.

Steam rises.
Condensation forms.
Moist skin,
The element of life aiding her end.
Her body slides into silky water,
Nerves shudder,
A final pleasure.
A single blade grinds enamel,
Final thuds of her heart in her ears,
Closed to the world, she feels peace here.
Darkness beckons and pulls on her soul,

Silence.
Nothing but silence -
She is gone