I used to hang out in abandoned buildings.
Old machine shops with puddles of rainwater pooled up on the floor;
sun or star light visible between broken and failing rafter beams
and the holes in the ceiling and my eyes.
Sometimes there would be particle board hammered into the brick
where heavy glass windows once stood;
tacked all about with bright yellow and pink postings warning
people like me to stay out and to not trespass under penalty of law.
The warning signs made me nervous because I don’t like to get in trouble.
Sometimes I would notice abandoned spaces while
driving up route 11 - Scranton, Pennsylvania.
I would park and discern through google maps on how
to gain access to yet another relic of American industry before
Wall Street reinvented slavery and shipped the spirit
of the Rust Belt to Mexico and Bangladesh and China and
various sweatshops overseas.

I had a lot of spare time to walk up and down the Wyoming Valley, northeast PA,
looking for the abandoned skeletons of buildings
into which I could furtively enter and abide.
Friday night, long week, punch the clock, no plans - no problem.
It was me and my two feet,
a long walkabout winding through the annals of my memories,
maybe some take out for dinner and all is well.
Don’t get me wrong, I had friends.
I’ve been to many places and I’ve seen many things.
I’ve faced many hardships but I always found a
posse or a partner with whom I could abide in peace and cheerful community.
That is before I would up and leave them abandoned in the wreckage of
my slow motion odyssey of self destruction;
dusting the bones of my many friendships with the many
chem trails from the many jet planes from the many tickets booked
by my father to save me from the many demons gnawing on my neck and heart.
Goodbye florida. Good bye guam. Goodbye california.

Abandoned buildings are safe.
There is a comforting predictability in their steady dilapidation.
There are no standards of social etiquette by which to adhere.
There is no small talk through which manufactured smiles show their teeth.
There are no ****** expressions and body postures to monitor
and reflect back what adjustments in countenance and demeanor I must make.

My face was a Greco-Roman mask.
Stretched and dried out, suspended somewhere between a comedy and a tragedy.
My face is the furthest frontier of my soul song,
the outermost edge of my heart.
That through which sound passes.