For the Small Town Orphans

I have dreams too big for this city,

ambition that would flood the streets of this town,

and an inability to keep my mouth shut when I should.

I fell in love by the side of a swimming pool when I was fourteen,

and at a café in London when I was sixteen,

and never again.

I have a tendency towards dissatisfaction;

an insatiable thirst to be right.

If I could put glue on both of my hands

and paste this world back together,

I would.

And perhaps it would be more broken than it was before I touched it.

But my blood is more of fire than of flowers, and

it would be a lie to say I don’t crave an apocalypse.

At least on some days.

My mind flips between desire and anxiety, lust and audacity

like a projector screen flashing in a dark classroom.

We came here, but for what?

This year I will pack my life into a suitcase,

get on an airplane,

and fly away.

It’s that easy.

A plane ticket, a piece of paper, permission to leave.

And suddenly “dreams too big for this city”

feel small in a city that is too big for dreams.

Ambition that only touches the street like a single raindrop,

joining a river of the passion of those anonymous masses.

But I still can’t keep my mouth shut.

I’m walking in the wake of devastation,

or maybe I am the devastation,

but death is a stranger I have known my whole life.

Her fingerprints are on everything that fades.

And I can’t stop running.

Even if it leads me back here.