absentminded butterflies

She felt like home
when all other roads
led to empty streets on the inside  
 
There’s a plastic bag
blowing in the wind  
following me wherever I go  
it has nothing to say  
except perhaps  
“pick up your trash”  
my trail littered with  
the loved and lost  
in the guise of smoked cigarettes  
taking shelter in the gutter
 
And I’ve been down there  
with the spit and the vomit  
and pre-loved syringes  
wishing the clouds would  
turn to pillows and I could rest  
my head in the sky  
instead of in the afterbirth  
of last night’s tragedies  
 
Under the gaze of her bright blue eyes  
the dawn of the day we  met  
didn’t look a failed apocalypse
chasing down the conceptual art
of empty morning streets  
and it was easy to forgot that I was meant  
to be watching the installation  
of plastic bags yearning to fly  
and suffocating absentminded butterflies instead  
 
She felt like home  
when all other roads
led to empty streets on the inside  
 
And I cashed all my chips  
like gambling was a career choice  
for the sane  
because she felt like home  
only to find her love as fleeting and apocalyptic  
as the sunrise on the last day of our lives  
 
© Indie Adams 2015