.....

From the crumbling ceiling, a bare lightbulb
hangs with its chain-link partner, just within reach
so you can turn on the light and see yourself
in the harsh, low rent reality of
the incandescent light.

A dark night in July paints a portrait
of day number forty-seven of
the Hundred Day Cough; the
hundred generations of twisted fingers plucking
and snapping rusty guitar strings.

Though our lives of poverty and addictions
will likely result in the lukewarm infinity of existentialist hell,
no apologies will be made. The stumbling beat
of ten thousand broken hearts in fractured cages
will forever go unaccounted for; forever
unnoticed.

We are the walking wounded.
We starve. We wander listless
and floating in our fevers, in
a trance. Our lips push out sounds
that no human ear recognizes.
We dull our pain with treachery;
we hang at dawn for treason.

When the Brotherhood of sinners
finally fall silent in our graves,
the children will go hungry.