A Railroad Town Full of Ash

I wonder how much space is left
in the cemeteries we used to wander,
their mausoleums a respite
for the bored and restless.

The graveyard was our brief escape,
the only place where the suffocating stillness
of small town America made sense.

Like if we sat amongst the dead
we could quell the anxious need
to get the hell out.
Make peace with our dying city,
with our dying friends.

They say the high makes you feel
“truly alive.”
How could they say no?
And so some clambered onto rooftops frozen,
where spiderweb cracks shattered and fell.
Others glimpsed the narrow chance at escape
and hit the road at neck-breaking speeds;
Still others chose the jagged cliffs
where free-fall promised
a fleeting suspension of the word’s insufferable weight,
and so many reached for a need:
a sleepy town full of sleepless youth.

In a place we were never taught to dream,
we instead learned to die,
and grieve,
and grieve,
and grieve.