Under the Blacktop

When I’m with him, I feel it:
Walking blind, feigning sight
Alongside a precipice cut above
An endless abyss of night
By waters that are shallow
To everyone’s thinking
But the hidden dread and intoxication
Remembers sinking
And sinking

Sinking…

Into a torn seat
In a borrowed, busted car
That only needs to make one trip,
Never far
Just a black strip into darkness
With the cat’s eyes closing
Somewhere to end,
Or a familiar hand to offer comfort,
Or a stranger to begin again
And again

Again…

Wandering blind
In the perpetual silence that followed
The question
Wagering tomorrow to
Leverage yesterday
Waiting for reparations-
The stakes seem cheap,
When there’s nothing else to barter,
But losing the bet
Means sleeping harder,
Or forever,

And hell won’t right no wrongs.