Condition Oakland
Blake Schwarzenbach
I rode down to the tracks.
Thinking they might sing to me.
But they just stared back.
Broken, trainless and black as night.
Climbed out onto my roof.
So I'd be a poet in the night.
Beat the walls off my room.
I saw the big room that is this life.
This is my condition:
Naked and hysterical,
Reaching to grab a hand
that I just slapped back at.
This is my condition:
Desperate, alone,
Without an excuse.
I try to explain. Christ, what's the use?
Read and I felt so small.
Some words keep speaking
When you close the book.
Drank and just about smiled.
Then I remembered us in that bed.
Put my ear to the door.
I just heard hot rods
and gunshots and sirens.
People kill me these days.
There's keys in their eyes
But they lock from the inside.