the city screams

no matter how still the night the electricity still thrums in my heart rattling down my veins into restless fingers like tin cans filled with pennies. I wish I could sleep soundly and speak of the dawn without the hushed desperation of seeing the world reset without me through a window streaked with dispair and stained with a faint future.

the neon lights yell and I lean into a back alley with all its hushed brick and listless garbage, fluttering helplessly against the damp stones as the rain continues to plaster them to the ground. The city screams and I am still its prophet bathed in rose light and filthy smoke, a baptism of understanding that the world will never be what we want and a blessing in knowing that ultimately we are insignificant amidst the steel towers and swarming crowds. we are freed from simple goals and futile existence content in knowing we are just a blip in a vast unforgiving universe.

we’llsurvivethiswe’llsurvivethiswe’llsurvivethis I whisper under my breath with rubber lips and sunken eyes as dark as the water rushing underneath my feet swirling with filth and corpses. a grimace like palms clasped together raised to the sky, futile prayers in broken eyes. set it down. I mumble. she’s insignificant. this moment is nothing and we’ll survive this. and we do.

I don my Sunday best, shimmering leather jeans, blood-spattered combat boots that smell of cologne, a thick racing jacket cuffed with shredded paper and spray paint, and thick oil in stripes on my cheeks. I grin and my bloody lip splits, dripping down my chin and onto the pavement. My hair is shorn and in its place are thorns piercing my skin wrapped behind my ears and out through my nape. the night is cold and my breath spirals into the sky through pierced lips, blood swirling under my tongue. my steps on the pavement crash into the ground like a body breaking through a sheet of ice sinking into the deep blue, snow landing gently on the surface. the fire escape is rickety, the breaking of a voice before furious tears and bloody knuckles it leaves my hands a dusty orange. The city screams and as I climb onto the roof panting I scream with it. brilliant lights flash far beneath me, so very far that it’s a haze through the clouds. I yell, voice raw, hands splayed to the heavens, and I laugh. because no matter the insignificance of this dying city, I am even less so.

I swing my legs over the edge and take in the view, the height making me sway, a delightful sort of giddiness that only comes from looking Death in the eye.

you’re nothing, I tell Them.

I stretch my hand out to the dark silhouettes of the skyline and I wonder what it would be like to fall. I wonder what it would be like to fly

I laugh softly, and step back onto the roof. The city screams. I wipe the blood off my lip and speak.

I can hear you. I don’t know how the hell you expect me to fix everything, but I mean, I guess I can’t fuck it up any more than it already is. Can you maybe, stop dying so I can get a few hours of sleep?

Thought not.

I sigh softly and lie down on the roof, feet numb and head pulsing.

Well, goodnight, I guess.