A Psychotic Run

Life on the Street

Photo by Alexandre Debiève on Unsplash

Delusion-driven,
hidden
in shadows
from heat
shimmer
seething
with a boombox
beat.
Backbeat
jolts arrhythmic
in my chest.
Black-jacketed
clouds
swagger
into a smoldering
night.
Freestyle rap,
a gangsta’s shiv,
tears a fatal
wound in ghetto’s
blight.

Streets
turn frigid,
icicles hang
off
black gutters,
needles
cling
to tied-off
veins.
Frostbit
beat
bullies me
down Sweet Auburn Street,
subway vents
the only heat.

Theodore McDowell