Long nights with short tempers.

Short drinks for long bills.

Cut skirts pour juiced fingertips,

eyes ablaze with acting and quick quips.

While men’s virtues light to visceral.

Dialogue through car horns

and conversations through headphones

while slopped-up scragglers sing

for pocket change and we’re all

pie-eyed rebuking what we became.

Another Dive, another burn.

A torch to light the low

and lick the blow

inhaling slowly as we roll.

No whites in their eyes.

This sleazy shamus,

waiting, biting his cheek

and using his teeth to sweat the lips

his tongue rotting in the center.

A step up from Down There.

Where filaments of fog separate

the smog from the smug

and my soot connects them all.

A step up from Down There.

Where there’s no real nothin’.

Just lingering booze on breath

while honesty is buried in filters of cigarettes

that paint the sidewalks like we used to do when we were kids.

But now we lie awake until the morning comes

and we begin round…whatever.

A small step up from Down There.

 

by Kyle Clark, UM-Flint Student