Paradigm

Skulls still partially covered
in faces now unrecognized
slowly decay in the torrential rain
that’s fallen since it all broke out
on Monday an almost destined
construct for bringing on this madness
in the first place.
Families whisper in their boarded up
apartments about the places they all
think they still can run too,
but the radio bulbs don’t pick up
all the stations.

The voices on that thing just give
their own opinions on the matter
and expect the falling city to just decide.
I do not want anyone to look this over
and believe me because the main thing
I am working in is lies.
They are hopefully helpful in some cases,
but the big things need to show up
from within the one who’s making
the decision.

The train pulls in late after a week
of all the people getting angry,
and the only way out of the city
is as a passenger or a runaway
lost somewhere in the forest
on the outskirts they were never
meant to break through.
What would I do in that moment
if the people at the top point
of the triangle were looking down
and laying out they’re dreams
for my potential?

I would follow the cardinal
with its talons wrapped around
the metal banister.
It’s a female and I know
it has a place out there
where everything emerges
from the floor and there is more
of me I haven’t seen mixed up
in all the panic of the present.
I am sitting on the front stairs
of a house that I am never coming back to,
and there are too few words that make it
any easier.