2nd Street Blues

i slipped out of her room quietly,
pushed the button on the elevator,
and as i made it outside,
into the hot sun and fresh breeze,
i puked on the sidewalk.
i was feeling bad.
real bad.
washing my face in the sprinklers,
i wiped my mouth and lit a cigarette.
as i walked through the tunnel,
i thought about how bad this all looked to me.
no matter how hard i fought to do things right,
they tended to not work out.
i was tired.
tired of trying,
and tired of doing,
tired of thinking of them
and tired of constantly being tired.
i was waiting for one of the bums in the tunnel,
to kick me into oncoming traffic.
i was being overdramatic
and i knew it.
but it was still a thought.
and that's got to be something.
suddenly, mid way through,
a wave of nausea came over me,
and i turned for the wall.
it hurt me inside this time.
i felt things burning and gears grinding.
insides shifting and bile filled my mouth.
i swayed and sat down against the wall.
the pissed soaked wall.
the peeling tile wall.
the water soaked mildewed wall.
i sat down and thought about not getting back up.
just staying there until i didn't feel tired anymore.
until i felt ready.
pulled out my little notebook
that i had hidden in my jacket
and wrote this:

it doesn't matter how good you are at it,
if you can do it deaf, mute or blind,
you'll still struggle.
it doesn't matter how well you treat them,
some will love back, while others
will look for a way to rob you of everything.
without knowing it, they take from you,
everything they could steal.
it doesn't matter how well you say it,
once somebody thinks of you as a certain person,
you're locked into that forever.
they won't break it.
even if it is them that brings out the worse in you.
they will never acknowledge it.
nothing was made to make sense.
that would be a violation of our coding.
so some of us continue on,
taking things as they come.
and some of us
are forced to make things happen
for
themselves.
all of this,
won't change a thing.