looking around this empty room right now, I’ve come to accept that the gig is up; the party’s over, the lights are off and everyone’s gone home: the music here is quiet and tame the basement echoes in phantom laughter the window panes are no longer broken the pyramids of beer cans have crumbled the late nights have turned into early mornings the dancing girls have turned into career women and I had it good for a while, maybe too good; shooting dice and rolling sevens and elevens but now everything comes up snake-eyes. I finally understood that the foundations of people were more unstable than water and less faithful than a Rush St. ******. friendships and other relationships sank faster than a mafia ****** weapon (maybe that’s why they call them “ships”) but as the aging hours of time came crashing through like lightning: I found love when love was unkind I found hate when hate was merciless I found people and stubbed them out like cigarettes where by and by, it all turns to ash, just mounds and mounds of ash, windswept by gentle persuasion and now they’re buried in their shrink-wrapped lives; dropping kids off at soccer practice, attending PTA meetings, hosting chili cook-offs, yelling at football games, disgusted with Tuesday’s, bowling on Wednesdays, pretending everyone’s doing fine and living quite well while I am left here with myself and this eerie moment of reflection, now realizing: it’s all gone.