Push The Button

Push The Button
by Keaton Foster




In this chest, a shrouded space,
Between these eyes, a shadowed trace,
Deeper still, beyond the veil,
Within my mind, a fractured trail.
A mechanism hums, unseen, untold,
Its gears of mystery, sharp and cold.
Push the button. Set it off.
Turn it on, or let it scoff.
Shut it down, if down it goes,
A riddle born where no one knows.
I don’t grasp what it does,
Or how it came to be because
The wires twist in tangled streams,
A labyrinth of silent screams.
Where do they run? To what supply?
What fuel ignites this inner sky?
How does it hold its ceaseless charge,
A power small, yet looming large?
And if it has a purpose true,
Dare I dream it’s more than two?
I stand before it, hands unbound,
Yet cannot make the slightest sound.
The levers slip, the dials resist,
A force I feel but can’t assist.
All that I can do is wait,
A pawn to some unyielding fate,
Hoping others, bold or blind,
Will reach within this maze of mind
And trip the switch I cannot see,
To spark the thing that might free me.
Will I shut down, a husk to rot?
Will I turn on, a blazing shot?
Will I explode in shards of flame,
A burst of chaos, none to tame?
Or, dare it be, implode instead,
Collapsing inward, cold and dead?
Will I drag you all along,
A requiem in ash and song,
Or bear alone the weight I dread,
A solitary end unwed?
Push the button. Fear no blame.
I call to you, I speak your name.
Pleading now, with trembling breath,
To dance with life or court my death.
Find the trigger, buried deep,
The inner pulse, the guarded keep,
And press it down with steady hand,
Unleash the tide beneath the sand.
Stand back and watch what I become,
A phoenix born, or silence dumb.
Perhaps it’s nothing, void and still,
A hollow click, an empty thrill.
Then again, perhaps it’s all—
The rise of stars, the final fall.
A bomb ticks soft within my skull,
A heart that pulls with lethal lull,
Circuits primed to rend the skies,
A mass extinction in disguise.
Yet if it blooms, this fatal flower,
The fault’s not yours, nor yours the power.
You are the weight, the gentle press,
A catalyst in my distress,
A means to ends I can’t foresee,
Or something more—a mystery.
Beyond the now, beyond the then,
Beyond the scope of mortal ken,
We’ll never know till time unwinds,
Till fate reveals what chaos binds.
So please, I beg, don’t shy away,
Push the button, come what may.
Activate what won’t retreat,
A hum no force can e’er defeat.
Repositioned, no—it stays,
A fixture in these endless days.
Shut it down? That dream is gone,
It lives, it breathes, it carries on.
For life and death, they twist, they blend,
Not endings stark, but threads to mend.
A meaning waits, submerged, unseen,
For all who dare to intervene.
Through trembling hands, through fragile choice,
A spark ignites, a fleeting voice.
The dark recedes, or so it seems,
And light erupts in fractured beams.
Or maybe not—perhaps it’s night,
Eternal still, devoid of sight.
We stand upon this edge, this brink,
And only action makes us think.
So push the button, let it be,
And find what lies inside of me.




Written by Keaton Foster Copyright © 2025