u/Cast_Aside831

The two of us
Joined as veteran souls
From wars of familial attrition
Our amateur hearts patched
And stitched in
Umbilical tripwire
Paternal shrapnel
Entwined and naked
Under judicial scalpel
Cut so cleanly through skin and bone
Cutting too deeply to ever feel home
Arms that held us together
We levied against each other alone
We’ve gone AWOL
Abysmal, Withering Over Loss
Forever will we roam
But still I’ll wait standing watch
To see your flag return
To my shelled
Vacant horizon
Where all suns refuse to burn

(From 2008)

Last night was a ballet of bullets and bottles, 
Our feet twisting on themselves down rain-washed streets. 
The young and the beautiful, 
The slowly decaying from within, 
All the bright smiles, 
The dull eyes, 
And runny noses, 
Mingling under a sky laced with cigarette smoke, 
Between the reverb of bass lines, 
The sharp tap of a 9mm snare drum. 

Today, stretched cat-like on my small bed 
The window is open 
And a slow trumpet plays 
A Sunday song 
My cigarette, my coffee, my cat-my closest friends 
And this lovely music drifting along with the river's wind 
Through my narrow truth 

The sun is feeling forgiving 
But not without price 
His request is that you stand underneath 
His unrelenting eyes 
And the impurities flow out of you 
Like the slow notes from that trumpet 
As a ruptured artery gives its last spurt 
And the heart says its good byes 
The beads of sweat forming on a glass of milk 

My city 
We lay in each other's arms last night 
I made a home of one of your many gutters 
I laughed and danced under your sky 
This morning, you gently nudge me 
And I put my broken feet to the hardwood floors 
The trumpet continues its slow song 

I've lived in your streets and neighborhoods 
For my whole life 
And just now, 
I am feeling like I am home

(I thought I’d lost this… for any who remembers the Sentry's Challenge, even after the walls have fallen)

And counted the number of times he should have torn his tongue from his jostling jaw.

Named the tiles on the bathroom floor and excavated the bowels of every backyard for breath and scoured each satchel for 60 seconds silence.

Timed the distance from reaction to reflection and glued bits of silvery tape to each stepping and standing stone.

Waited at the edge of the campfire light and bumped into beasts and brutes for seconds and lifetimes under a starless sky.

Carved your name into weapons of war and drew out attack plans on a cellar door.

Honed his patience on a diamond rod that spared no inner child

And counted the rings of green in his own eyes before casting the offensive organs out.

The sentries stayed home and slept alone.