Solitude

In this room...  
It's blistered cardboard walls  
And a monotonous bulb
Guttering above me  
Like a flickering 60 watt sun  
That forgot to shine  
 
Surrounded by the scent  
Of stale cigarettes  
And the scattered remnants of nightmares  
Footsteps  outside my door  
Disembodied fragments of men  
Scurrying down infinite corridors of solitude  
 
Leaning out my window  
Into the sprawling urban night  
The wafting bouquet of garbage  
And the relentless symphony  
Of sirens and screams  
The hooker on the corner  
Pacing her purgatory of sidewalks  
With absent feline grace  
 
I light my last cigarette  
Burning my throat and stomach  
Blowing smoke rings of oblivion  
Towards the bulging cracked ceiling  
 
Scrawling desperate verse  
To a love in a far distant place  
Wondering if she'll ever reach me  
Amidst this wreckage and ruin.  
 
One day they'll find me  
My silent pen caught in stigmata death grip  
With nothing but tattered notebooks  
And scattered throwaways  
To mark my earthly sojourn.