The People We Used to be and the People We’re Not

All my days start with waking

From some insurmountable place

The top of a tree in my old neighborhood

A Plantation house in the south, standing on the roof

Looking down at the streets I don’t recall anymore

Seeing myself as the younger man

I no longer relate to

Drop me off in my old town

The streets not the way I remember them

One bleeds into another, into the next

A memory here, a misplaced footing here

A romantic embarrassment, the place I called home

Now inhabited by strangers who beat the walls senseless

And roam the streets

Looking for the maps

To places that don’t exist like they were

The people we used to be and the people we’re not

It’s the same everywhere and nowhere about.

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