Pueblo

other cities in the world seem to age with a sense of grace

but American cities grow into a state of forlornness.

a film of rust and mold plague the surfaces

of neighborhoods once booming in their adolescence,

like the raspy hungover stubble on a drunkard’s face.

smokestacks erected as proud monuments

for winning the west

now stand in sunbaked isolation, a mocking vulgarity,

epitaphs to a hope quickly ignored and forgotten.

graffiti tattoos the train cars and drainages,

flashes of color sprawled across a hardened skin,

providing the only real signs of life in this desolation,

but even they are bleached and faded now,

chipped and lost to the deep wrinkles of the city.

this is the premature aging of American cities

that makes us long for a prairie fire,

a quick end to life turned decrepit.

–

to feel lonely in another country is expected.

to feel lonely in a new town is understandable.

but loneliness in the place you grow and have grown

can be unbearable, unrelenting,

only truly known in cities that should have never existed,

in cities that no longer want you.

– jordan