Almost three in the afternoon, and I’m barely on my second cigarette
That’s the best I’ve been all year, and it hasn’t been easy
The days feel like a forever, just as the months sift through my fingers
Started reopening old wounds, reliving the post trauma of past disorders
Me and sobriety tag teamed against my addictions is never a fair fight, not for us
So to fight the night, I play the war cries of my past life
But it also triggers a tornado of flashbacks that may prove harder to escape
Just so happens, the storm drops me into the wasteland following High School
This post puberty, postmortem gutter i had trapped myself in
A time of mutual disruption and inspiration, which often go hand in hand
I found myself wandering the wilderness with a rabid wolf pack from the suburbs
This crew was crazy… and not in the “seen too many movies” crazy
We’re talking smoking crack in an Indiana cornfield at three in the afternoon crazy
Leading rebellions in a midnight diner, flipping tables and calling everyone a Communist
Getting beat down and thrown out of a ******* for sticking a finger into a stripper’s -
LISTEN, crazy ****, okay?
They were Lost Boys, Wild Boys, Rockstars, Freedom Fighters
Allow me to set the stage for most nights down this rabbit hole
A run down foreclosure filled with delinquents and refugees
The basement is ten decibels too loud and ten degrees too hot
The entire shell of the home pulses from the energy beneath it
We enter through a side door, and everyone nods us in
Down the stairwell, all you can see is a blood red fog striped by laser beams
It looks alive with its own toxic attitude
It beckons us further down, with an evil laugh and an angry drum
We crowd into a VIP room just off the basement dance floor
Several lines of happy powder cut by a razor peak across a Green Day album
The room stinks of smoke, sweat and stress… but don’t judge us for our lifestyle
If you’ve never altered your state of mind, how the **** do you know you’re in the right one?
As I smile at that rebellious thought, a blue haired temptress catches my eyes, and smiles
She makes room for me on the couch, and we trade names
She was dripping in *** appeal beneath her studded leather jacket, and beneath that… her true beauty
Her mind was a well crafted musical instrument, of which she played only for the Devil
Maybe that’s how she was raised, maybe that’s just how she got attention
Trust that I know what love is, better than most who have claimed the title
But sometimes, it’s the absolute last thing that you need or want
So I countered with my own Satan’s fiddle
It we’re speaking maturity, I was nowhere near the age of consent
She said I had some point of view issues, and I said,
“You mean how my view keeps pointing me in the wrong direction?”
“******* little boy, careless of the crimes to come?”
Sensing a dead end, I looked for my crew, but they were nowhere in sight
Yep, those are my friends, my kin, the ones who abandoned me
We made out for a while before she stopped me with sad eyes and a pearly grin
“Sorry darlin, but there’s just something twisted about you...”
She would die from ****** a week after telling me that, and it hit the tribe hard
I kept that dagger she pierced me with close to my chest long after that
Next time I saw the leader of our pack, he was far from the warrior he once was
Less than a shadow, barely a voice, with a needle in his arm
I left his house after only an hour, and cried for an hour after that
I sat in my car, in a Chicago December, freezing my nuts off
Because I forgot to turn the car on, because I was too busy mourning the loss
of so many visionaries, so many poets
These beautiful individuals who inspired me, they were dead… gone forever.

After that, I pulled the headphones off, and lit another cigarette to ease my mind.