This Town Plays Out in Shifts

– one way in, two ways out;

shoulder to shoulder

but eyes never touch –

in gilded passageways

where people take pictures of shit;

the part you played

you thought would be your last

because

“This isn't real,”

because

“We are obsolete,”

because

“Who wants to live forever?”

is imprinted forever in impartial recognition

where every face

every building

every pigeon on a bridge

is a silhouette in which anything can fit

so you make everything fit

to relate it back to you

an echo to give back to you

to give yourself significance –

everyone knows this

everyone's seen it

and now I'm a part of that;

I'm associated with this forever

and you may never know me and we may never kiss or talk,

one finger each entwined in a secret,

share ice cream as rivulets race through our fingertips

but there are moments in this town that I have crafted carefully

I made so you could fit inside

that will always have a piece of me

that remain only mine until you come into frame.

In that moment you are compacted as your self dwells in my echo

making it new

and you and I transitive in that moment

in that place

we've created the convergence in which we are now everyone.

in every place connected

and now I'll think of you in my city

as I leave lipstick schmeared on borrowed ceramic mugs

breathe smoke till my nimbus bathes me in a scented wreath

the streets will appear in painted secrets

sulphuric low tide heat escaping manholes in bursts

as with me you'll exist in half-held memory

like a poster past showtime

sunbleached with drying tape.

We'll coexist timeless

borrowed songs heard through an open door

And in time we could be everyone

And with time we can be anyone

And in time we will be everyone

I just need you to believe in me.

.14.4.17.