Condition Oakland

Jawbreaker

I rode down to the tracks.


Thinking they might sing to me.


But they just stared back.


Broken, trainless and black as night.


Climbed out onto my roof.


So I'd be a poet in the night.


Beat the walls off my room.


I saw the big room that is this life.





This is my condition:


Naked and hysterical,


Reaching to grab a hand


that I just slapped back at.


This is my condition:


Desperate, alone,


Without an excuse.


I try to explain. Christ, what's the use?





Read and I felt so small.


Some words keep speaking


When you close the book.


Drank and just about smiled.


Then I remembered us in that bed.


Put my ear to the door.


I just heard hot rods


and gunshots and sirens.


People kill me these days.


There's keys in their eyes


But they lock from the inside.