These empty streets sit at ninety degree angles
As they’ve always done before
But I never knew this
Blinded by their artificial horizons
Caught up in the cadences of the people
Their unscripted weaving in and out like ants
Constructing fragile nothings out of thin air
That dissipate on the incoming breeze
So this is Armageddon, I think to myself,
Where silences breathe and count to ten
Then breathe all over again
But I’m not breathing, not taking it in
Except to hyperventilate in time
To the metronome of my vibrating heart
Stuck inside this ticking timebomb
I know will detonate any second now
This clinging makes me hate myself again
These days fractured and fragmented as such
Warn me that I’m as empty as these streets
Barren as the wasteland from which I was born
These black birds harbingers of an afterlife
I was never promised, nor wish to receive
But the gods are observing intermission
And I’m breathing in, waiting to exhale
I remember tipping cows in Arizona
Or at least the huffing and puffing for nothing
Trying to fit in with people who don’t matter
And I miss it like I miss garlic, and crosses,
And cemeteries at high light, shadows ready
Walking until I can’t remember my name
All as distant from me now as Tony’s Pizza
Taken over by cobwebs the size of artichokes
I look out my window and no one stares back
A solitary soul walks slowly down the avenue
She obviously doesn’t know it’s dangerous
Doesn’t know the sky is a cleaver, raised high
To chop her down so she’s my size, miniscule
As seeds buried deep in the soil
But I’m stuck behind glass, a caricature
Of myself, not really caring how the show ends
Just hopeful I won’t get written out
Like all the others, behind shades, so cold
They chill me to think of their souls,
Floating like sprites in the air
But I’m not breathing them in
I’m squeezing my eyes shut and counting
Until one thousand, then I’m starting again
I don’t know what else to do.
These empty streets sit at ninety degree angles
As they’ve always done before
But I won’t let them seduce me anymore.
My Poetic Muse 