Metamorphosis

This place filled with people
runs rampant
these people run rampant
they are all from somewhere else
wild-eyed or pie-eyed or both
Nothing can be anything
larger than a bonfire
and because it's smaller
they call it a village
this place
these people
lounging in the street
ignoring the deadly nature of traffic
they laugh at the illuminated screens
of their decorated phones
they don't say much
just drink their beer
or margaritas yelling
throw spent butts on the tired cement
of the ground around
the black battered ashtray
Can the world ever truly know us?
know the ceaseless exertions
of our night burning minds?
we burn electricity like charcoal 
or whale blubber or teardrops
grown under the auspices
of cruelty 
or of an ignorant disregard 
for the raw nature of kindness
some of us hidden
alone in our dark soups
Sometimes hand claps are gunshots
are you scared enough?
when we all wake alone
in the wind of a valley
or a canyon high
made of stone
or at night on any Tuesday
outside a bar fading
a neighborhood forced 
to bear witness
to witness youth 
being wasted
spilling out of themselves
onto the pavement
"It's okay," I say
in a series of dry short coughs
their wet-eyed antics
their pedantic actions
precipitating 
scattering travesties
and when we try
to ignore them
we already were them
or become them
even more readily