power socket

this is to the ones like me

where to focus on

breathing

you start feeling

the weight

of the air around you

until the city is a buzz saw

with a dull blade chewing

so

when you have to wait for the train

do you wait or

do you see it as a moving art show

suffocating in lines

lines of traffic

power lines

cocaine lines

college ruled lines

empty

the lines at the grocery

and the lines at the hospital

or back in broken dim rooms

born and raised in that same

cigarette smoke

with walls toenail thick in yellow tar

on couch cushions that leak

fabric from frayed seams

where young

dreams

are fed

dose

after dose

after dose

of the

worst gateway drug

to exist.

lonely despair

sometimes

I wind up back there