Imagine a dark room.
No widows. No doors.
You can't get out.
Your arms are spread out before you.
You scrape the walls. You stumble around.
All you have is what you brought with you.
Memories. Your beating heart.

How did you get here?
You don't know.
You can't stop and think.
The panic sets in.
You're freaking out.

You aren't a man of god but you call His name.
Please get me out of this! I will be good I swear!
Nothing. No flashing light . No burning bush.
You are alone.
If there is a God,
he doesn't know your name.

You think you're being watched
the hairs on your neck stand up.
A squeak. A scurry.
Something walks across your toes.
Furry. Small.
And it happens again.
And again.

You scream like a girl.
Things crawl up your pant leg and
across your shoulders and down your shirt.
Squeaking. Furry. Small.
Scampering. Biting.
You spin and jump and cry,
things squash under your feet.
You scream and scream and scream

And then you wake up.
Your sheets are tangled and ran through with sweat.
You need a minute to regain yourself.
It was only a dream
It was only a stupid, stupid dream
The memory of it fades.
It fades to nothing.

you close your eyes.

And you hear a squeak

Though it isn't written
When the time is given
For no wages or ransom
You would sell out the world

I wouldn't trust my life
I wouldn't keep my secrets
In a running faucet mouth

Never **** a girl with rats.
  It.
never last.
A girl who cares for rats.

These streets
are home to countless
rodents
emerging for a moment
to feed
or breed
or just to breathe the sun

One by one line up
for the chance to
make something
out of nothing

Who are they and
where do they go
while the city refuses to
sleep

Doors to endless lands
line the avenue
each its own portal to the
unimagined

A family of four
with the yapping mutt
or a lonely cat lady
whose entryway wreaks of *****,
a drug dealer
door slamming
every hour on the hour
or an empty snowbird's nest

On the surface
everyone pretends
they don't have a hole to
crawl back to
or walls that know
every night

But below the sewer grate
a world filled with
the stench
of what could have been a
good day

Many a barkeep can
shed some life
on these drunkards'
rat king
or at least a story of those who
made it out

Once or twice it'd be grand
to see the bottom of a martini glass
left with a sip or two
instead of the casually tipped
lipstick-clad cocktail,
drained of doubt and despair
until morning warms the
frozen dreams
of those retired to
a paradise unknown

Can you hear leftover nightlife leaving veins?
Can you feel stumbling heartbeat tripping on nicotine?

This is the horrible trance of your world's youth in distress
You doomed us with war paint, war games, war school
We respond with war song, war faces, war spirit
When will we outgrow Ender's game?
"Every seed dies before it grows"
Do you take any responsibility for the outcome of selfish politics?
Have you left us here to die?
We are your future
We are caring for the elderly
We advance your technology
We fill your classrooms
We eat your chemicals
We buy your products
We will cry to your great-grandchildren
We will cry at your graves
This is the sound of a billion hearts ingrown, spines breaking
You help us waste our youth, our vigor, our intelligence
Will you help us die?

a rat burrows through my flesh, into my stomach, hiding next to my liver.
they stitch me back up,
send me home with a bottle of placebos.

home alone,
deep into the night,
i feel him crawling and scratching around,
rearranging things,
misplacing my bones and lungs in the process.

i can't exist
without you.

thoughts are the songs of the mind
           only myself may hear,
           louder than laughter
           audible as low-toned whispers.
sanctuary of the fugitive heart
           when all else has failed
           or fled like rats
           from a sinking ship.
untold secret of an heir
           which seldom finds a confidant
           if only not uttered in sleep.
unbreaking lance of the errant
           with sinews rare
           as his hands are bare.
thoughts rare.
thoughts *******.
thoughts prodigious.
thoughts uninvited.
father of action
son of an idle cloud.
bereave me of my lance
                           my secret
                           my sanctuary
                           my song;
and oh…
how naked
i shall be!