Come Back

Scrawled into the pavement, again and again

Written on the red stalls in smokey tin

On the smokey tin, it melts again and again

On the booths of the round table, again and again

Drug onto the street and onto the soaking steps, again and again

Endless debris sifting through static lungs

Lingering into every pore

Laced with a bitter face near the dawning of the high

And madness of the undertow

We audience who saved our roses

We audience who scoffed at the tears

Ugliness stretching toward the chandelier

Pale with pain

I imagined the overcome and fell to my knees

Before the endless truth of instability and futility

Now I know