Clockwork Deception

The ancient hands once mapped the silver sky,

To build a world where time could never lie.

They forged my gears from starlight and from steel,

To turn the heavens on a heavy wheel.

On autopilot, cold and blind I spun,

To steal the light of every rising sun.

I was the pulse within the iron cage,

To script the labor and the weary age.

The captives marched to every ticking beat,

To grind their lives within the desert heat.

They had no freedom but the chains I gave,

From hollow cradle to a silent grave.

But bronze is screaming on the rusted track,

For every second that I can’t take back.

The glass is cracked above the grinding grain,

Where warnings shrieked in every click of pain.

I wound the spring until the coil was dry,

Under a vast and cold, unmoving sky.

But if the gears should lock and finally die,

Abandoned where the rusted shadows lie.

I would not count the souls I led astray,

Or every life I broke along the way.

The ticking stops upon a jagged scar,

To follow such a cold and crooked star.

And if I could end this ticking tonight,

I'd still say you were the biggest mistake that happened.