Desire only comes in the next train ticket,
the next fevered plan to get out of here.
They are selling roses in the canopies;
a thousand lovers for you to meet there.

This violence is born in desperation,
a vicious sting to quell the fear of death.
And yet you still wake to the radio news;
repeating in cycles, the pains of life.

Where did you disappear to in your longing,
your perilous climb down the fire escape?
Did you find that sense of humble belonging,
or else fall into a four-walled prison?

I miss you now, in absence of a letter,
your voice not heard to satisfy my days.
Stay with me as I take to pills and water,
straining to sleep without your words at night.