I’m an interloper to everyday life, born into a forgotten neighborhood lying on the other side of rusty tracks.

I’m among you standing toed to your metal gates, gazing up at life no longer expanding into possibilities. You know nothing of my existence, the possibility of me never intrudes into your consciousness.

Clanking metals resonate daily as men and women forging earth into blocks waiting for you to decide. Your hero’s and saints mean nothing to me, your weathered worship fallow of meaning, bereft of redemption.

My world built upon the backs of outsiders, those deprived ruthlessly of hope but who continue to suckle the emotions of breath like Dennis Kendall the guy who first told me I wasn’t cool as he grabbed me by the collar shoving me hard against a filthy brick wall, mindlessly cracking the cosmic prison my mind loitered in.

Or Marie Chanel who taking my hand led me past scattered trash into a narrow alley, and sensing my confusion whispered “it’s alright.” lighting a lustful spark she flushed my youth down a rusted drain initiating a collision of life and death I’d never hoped existed.

When the nights are cold these are the people I hold in my heart with sentimental desperation.