our city is a floodplain - Xerxes

Disconnected from the gravel in the alleys

that taught our throats to sing,

I miss these streets and how they used to hold me

like the bedroom in the suburbs where I used to sleep.

This city built it’s lights like a cradle for the desperate youth,

but when we left it was a wasted bed,

worn to death by the bodies of our darkest nightmares

and the memories our coldest sweats.

And i don’t know if I could sleep again,

this place has killed our dreams.

I traced a map on the back of my hand,

but i still can’t see.

How did we lose our way?

I feel like the rain, raising the water by day,

and soaking river road with the memory of what used to be.

Maybe it was me that pulled the tide,

so when the pressure gets too high,

I can disappear at the water’s edge,

so i can swim in my own regrets.

But we’re still separated from the river that left us here,

we grew by the silt from the floodplain,

but we withered to grey in the sun,

our veins too swollen to stay shut.

We’re the waters that dried up,

we’re the blood that was lost.

We’re the flood that returned unrecognized,

we’re the homes that never forgot.