Eyes wide open
in the dark, blood rushing, pounding heart. Still I cannot see.
Can you believe, will you find relief
walking down once-familiar streets?
Before light to the darkness of the dream, or the dawn,
or the dread,
now only streetlights. I wake. I walk, I wonder.
Halogen hum overhead, the only sound, above scorched earth
or snow-covered ground.
Only one reason for being here, everything else
is gone.

Let me sleep.
Let dreams whisper. I’ve got thoughts, which must come out,
I shouldn’t need to shout. I cannot listen.
Below a moonlight serenade, the homeless search
for shelter and sustenance, while new lover’s trade
secrets
behind the door. Promises not shared before.
Not with each other.
I wander. These were once streets, bursting with kindness.
The sidewalks, now, little more than foreign, there is no welcome here.
Not in the way it was, as I left it.

Do you take
what is there, take the care, or do you wait to lay your heart
before the soul who once listened to all you know,
and found comfort. In my voice there was enough,
yet now it is torn with edges
rough.
What was still is. Or is it? There is value in a thought.
A struggle with contempt
of dreams I might have spent, but not wisely.
There is no warmth. I will go back from where I came,
my presence will remain.
© 2016 j.g. lewis