The place I can no longer be

I remember the streets I used to walk.  
I remember the men;  
the feeling of broken glass and hearts  
collecting between my toes,  
assembling in the drain;  
the fullness of it,  
the clogged satisfaction.  
 
The streets I walked for three years  
between mine and his or her house,  
between the evening and the street lamps;  
their lashings of light fell like tongues  
onto the back of my neck and my wrists  
like a mate healing my wounds.  
 
Those streets, shade to the curdling heat before it  
and to the summer that lurches after, towards me now,  
bidding me to run.  
I want to run
 
But the reflections in the pooling rot  
beg me to slow down, beg me to stillness.