'Round back alleys, and down black side streets
sits [laying] newspaper mattresses, and makeshift houses with no heat.

Just a step, or two, from Big City Lights, (a rolling neon technicolor wasteland),
lives the bottom tip of the bottle, and a short supply of all, but upturned hands.

Two streets over, over-the-top sparkle of high heels, and scantly draped dresses.
Down here, dweller's fever's rush down from old minded babe's spiralings of deep depression.  

The language most commonly spoken is lies, but it's not much different up hill.
What's not translatable from "bag," "spliff," or "pill," can be easily related with "shot," "bottle," or "bill."

I find myself fluent, a traveled veteran of countrysides,
adjusting to the headache of the city's heart, but unwilling to take the full ride.