The bar stinks of rancid smoke and despair,
My hands tremble like the leaves on autumn trees.
Years poured down the waste pipe, empty chairs,
I ran through life and stumbled to my knees.
Bottles lined like soldiers, poised to fight,
Nights blurred into mornings, aching, raw.
I tumbled through the streets in neon light,
A body bruised, a spirit under claw.
Then daylight came with quiet I could taste,
The river hummed, the gutters washed my mind.
I learned to pause myself, to slow my pace,
To leave the bar, the bottles, and the grind.
And now I walk where summer shadows bend,
A man reborn, my old self at its end.