Detour on My Way to Heaven

I took a detour on my way  

to heaven, found a broken bar  

with half-dead stools and ash  

piled in corners like lost years.  

The jukebox croaked Sinatra’s ghost,  

beer flattened on my tongue like  

every bad decision I married.  

A woman with cracked red nails  

and eyes that forgot their shine  

asked if I was waiting for death.  

"Just the bus," I said, smiling.  

Outside, the streets whispered sin,  

alleys coughed up their regrets,  

and the neon blinked like a last  

heartbeat trying to outrun nothing.  

Maybe heaven was too clean,  

too polished for a man like me.