Tenderloin Nights

When I cross over
I come unstuck
I don't stay

slick trips on the sick street
unplugged, wild-eyed
zombie hungers

walking with assholes or saints:
same amount of cigarettes
and spare change

butts harvested
gathered in the night
some laugh
others are shocked

we just want
creature comforts
or experience

you look so young
in your Slayer t-shirt
fresh to the ugly night
erroneously eager

I smoke to make it
go quicker
chaining exhalations
to passing souls

Guarding the portal between
scattered words and human waste
sensual sweat and glassy inebriation

inside
the dark
the basement sweats and you sweat
shake what you can get away with

outside
this fog river
human blur becomes the same

and I cross
I don't stay
I come back
I return