Burnout

Do your best not to worry about it
another steep hill covered in various
gravel you can slide down all too easily.
Get over the fence quickly
and let the chain link rattle
in the night while all those headlights
chase your shadow through the side yards.
You create static on a family’s television
by climbing up the antenna to their roof,
and look down over all the chaos
given license by your unrelenting gravity.
You take the battery out of your flashlight
and throw it through a window so it shatters
and the rest can just be knocked loose
by your fist. Posters of old bands
hold hands along the walls of what
you’re lucky was an empty room
to jump to.

When they catch you and they will
you’ll be like plastic in a parking lot.
Surrounded by the gray and jagged
concrete poured to keep you there,
where no one else can help you.
So take what isn’t yours
if you are able to, and light
a couple cigarettes on a lonely roof,
just keep the smoke clouds
darker than the dark.
Don’t be afraid
to look for more than
just a spark.