We Used to Own the Night

[EleCivil]

I rarely write poetry, but this one had been kicking around in my head for a while, so I figured I might as well let it out.

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We Used to Own the Night

Spoke in code and double-dares

And magic-marker murals

The ink we let lie on the stairs

It claimed the crawlspace crucial

Critical, cautious crawl

Memorize the floors

No battle cries but nervous sighs

Of shaking saboteurs

Don't use your given name out here

It slows your step to the stars

For all our plots and diagrams

We only breathe when it's dark

It's been a year, but just today

Swear we'll still run this block

From the basements to the barricades

From dusk 'till five o'clock

Only on this street these lungs

Attack this Akron air

Rip it in past teeth, this tongue

I taste this street, I swear

The sidewalk-stripes and sewer pipes

Each step seduced a sketch

We wore our symbol on our backs

Our code-names on our chests

We would swear that we could race the sun

Run West and never age

Exist between the satellites

And never face the day

But we never made it off that street

The crawlspace always jeered

And we found ourselves downstairs, asleep

We'll try again next year

But now the coats that showed our signs

They don't fit any more

We used to stomp and sing and cry

But now we only snore

I guess that we outgrew it all

And I'm not sure what to blame

We lost our symbols, lost the night

We lost our secret names

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Dedicated to the Thunder & Lightning Bros, Shadow, 'Pocalypse, and Blondie. The old names may be gone, but never forgotten.

-Civil

[aj]

This is a lovely poem. I'm glad you let it out.

aj

[blue]

Write poems more often, wouldja?

Good that you're around, and I hope those friends you named are too. At least they mean something still to you, and that gives it all some meaning.

Keep goin' with what's good, what's true. Let it shine through.