No, it doesn’t hurt.
Sure, you won’t feel a thing.
Don’t worry about it; it’s not cruel and unusual.
That’s what they told me.
Until the day I died, that’s what they told me.
Let me start by saying that I’m innocent.
I didn’t kill him.
I didn’t like him.
Or particularly mind that he’s dead.
The point is I didn’t kill him.
I walked into the kitchen that day and it was a mess.
There was blood everywhere.
I felt for his pulse.
I listened for a breath that never came.
The knife was lodged in his chest.
Such a grotesque angle…
So I took it out.
The police came in and saw a man with a knife.
I was sitting in another man’s pool of blood.
They gave me the sentence without losing a single night’s sleep.
They gave me the injections.
I was all alone.
The chemicals filled my body through a tube in my arm.
The first one wasn’t too bad.
It spread pleasant warmth throughout my body.
I felt a little out of it after that, a little tired, a little apathetic.
The second one was ruthless.
It was like ice water filling my warmed veins.
Everything got so heavy.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t yell out.
I couldn’t close my eyes.
Everything was frozen in place except for my thoughts.
The third one was the worst.
It traveled dreadfully slow.
Then it hit my heart.
I felt it move, thick like glue, with every beat.
Then it started to slow.
Each beat came a second later than it should.
Pretty soon I couldn’t catch my breath.
I couldn’t gasp for more air.
I couldn’t even yell out.
Everything was agony.
I lay there and waited for my body to shut itself down.
Eventually it did.
Before that day I was an innocent man.