Business As Usual

These dirty streets are not my own
But I walk them
Barefoot
Wasted potential crackling like glass below my feet
Barefoot
Because I want to make a connection
To the life that lies low beneath black pavement
I can feel it
Breathe

Breathe like the boys with cigarettes who tell me not to smoke
Like the girl with the guitar who plays the blues
Guitar blues without smoke
Smokey blues and breathe
So beatuifully I try to cry
Out o creater, god prophet priestess poet whore
Write me a song and make it love me
These conditional blues notes ain’t notes of mine
But if they were, we’d make a damn good tune
Breathe in

Streetlights, nighttime
Dirty city grime
Into my lungs
On the soles of my feet
Into my blood
The blood of a nation runs below me
Covered by scabs of pavement and
Makeshift bandaids of buildings shaking
Scared of someday crashing down.
An empire destroyed before it was known
Or understood
Completely

O how I long for fields of wildflowers
No more plastic neon petals safe secured
behind synthetic sheets in a store in lower manahttan

I want to breathe something real
Believe in something real
To touch to feel to connect
I walk these streets that were never mine
And are never yours
barefoot
to remind you that
I’m real
You can touch me
I’m standing right behind you
Just
Turn around