I once studied to be a linguist versed in the noises of nightfall.
Intimately privy to the sounds of a city whimpering in its sleep.
But I could never distinguish the perfect raindrops from footfalls.

There is no deeper sanctuary
past your spine,
so firmly pressed into the corner
that the wings of your vertabrae fold forward.
It is torture.

Upon the silence of night stalks temerous depression.
Fomented to revulsion by treacherous misperception.
The revulsion curdled to a clotted, impotent knot
of lassitude, never to lessen.

And the city is not a melting pot.
It is a cauldron into which the culls are tossed,
their joints and cavities whistle and pop.
Alive and fighting and screaming,
steaming to death in the seething city,
Warped by the rub of vulnerability.

As the night approached when my ego
would take its leave,
I preemptively poured it out onto the street.
so I could own it
for that last moment.
Down the sewer to run to the Sound,
mingling with greasy rain water,
until finally it drowned.