Your wind-up heart ticks and it sounds so real that I can almost feel it push blood through your veins. You are real, in your own way, and I love you as if you were flesh. I love you as if you had bones in place of your metal. But does that tick sound a bit slower today than it did yesterday? Than it did the day before that? Are your gears winding down? I frantically scramble to find the key, to turn the clock and keep you steady and real. Today, it works, and I breathe, and your metal heart beats on. But you and I both know we’re only prolonging the inevitable.








