The City Breathes

Beneath the moonlight,

the city breathes.

-

Its body bleeds.

-

They equalised the violence

while I shed another skin,

chameleonic creature

desperate to fit in.

-

The vision of you

brought it back in sharp waves,

the saxophones played,

past lives dismayed

beneath the edge of each blade.

-

The streets like a maze,

our shared gaze turned bloody

the rain turning the dirt thick,

wet, drenched and muddy,

-

we wander home, lost to the shifting city-

scape, no escape but I never

trusted much in fate

the illusion of feeling safe,

anything could change at any moment.

-

I run

Is it okay now? Is it safe again?

I run

-

and find no peace, being

served exactly what I feared all along.

-

I never saw you again,

enveloped within ever-emerging streets

which, like water, push me along,

unwilling, unwitting,

towards my own end.

-

I leave the gun behind,

try to wash the blood off of my hands,

and lose my breath one more time

while the moon grins and my head

spins.

-

The city bleeds.

-

Is it okay now? Is it safe again?

-

The question I’m forever asking

knowing the answer, but too afraid

to admit it.

-

No.

-

Beneath the moonlight

the city breathes,

but I hold my breath and feel time running out.