Leaving the Sin City

Photo by Anni Roenkae from Pexels

Crime infested holy cities filled with lovers gone mad out of satiety,

Hidden in sparkling sacred water, writing their penal codes of impropriety.

I’m too tame for this lonely town of looney tunes – I don’t have much hope in society.

Yet – I can’t make it alone, so please pardon my selfishness and compliancy.

Too long I’ve traveled these roads on my own, lost track of it a few mistresses ago.

I’ve never loved anyone that I could have but their ghosts still follow wherever I go.

It’s hard to carry those shadows down dusty fields or wily mountaintops though –

But there’s nothing more dangerous than taking your past for granted. So I carry it,

Through the ice and snow.

On weekends my brain takes me to a place I want to wake up in when I’m dead.

Sadly, it doesn’t make any sense – the sin cities I fled hold me by a phantom thread,

They pull me into the bright carousels of cheap whiskey kisses. The tap tastes like led.

When your temptations call for you, you pay for them in the skins you shed.

Otherwise, they might take your head.

-JW

A Goodbye Note on the Fridge

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric

It’s 2.30am and there’s nothing left in this world for me to fix,

Nothing I can do to change what’s been done, no knock-off tricks

Left in my sleeve – I’m fresh out of cheats to unlock this next level.

I’ll pack up and run. You’ll stay here to watch the dust settle.

To our past I feel sorry, my trembling arms are still holding on so tight.

But, then again, from a hundred wrongs you can’t make a single right,

Especially during the night.

Don’t call me lucky, my reality’s a free fall without a parachute.

I live on black coffee and spoofed memories of the lovers I mute,

My home is where I lay my head – but you can’t make running your friend.

You were right when you said I’m so fake I could run for president.

But, I swear, when I closed the door I didn’t mean to burn the bridges –

No point for explanations though. Just hope you won’t become religious.

“The Runaways” was playing the evening we crossed paths, it’s funny

How the moments you treasured seem foolish now, and less than temporary.

You never seemed to notice the worlds I built around you in my mind

So I built some without out you, pretending we would be just fine.

My fantasies became so real I couldn’t grasp.

And suddenly you knew, but you never asked,

Pretending we could be just fine…

***

It’s 4am and in fact, nothing needs my fixing.

I’m broken, true, yet I’ll stick to my vicious cycle of affixing

To someone that holds me together,

Only for a little while,

Like we’re birds of a feather,

Until I find a new place to start a better life.

One day I’ll make it right.

-JW