Fifteen

If I could again
I would walk at seventeen
Alone downtown
To read the same home street signs
And understand this time
Beyond roads and maps
The relevance in words’ intersections
Names in Dutch or Anishinaabemowin
Crossing above

Waste no more time
Waiting for a light to shine
Waste no more time
Waiting for the light

Sit in the corner
Like we always did
Asking older kids
For cigarettes
With the SHARP skins
And our crust punk friends
Morning glory packet acid trips

And now I know
In clear light my own worse failings
Where here too
In a still new place
I have and do break
Where I stare out paralyzed all day at rain
Just waiting
And writing is a referendum on me

But shouldn’t I be different now?
Having after that
Self-destructed slowly my twenties away
Until you came and so life did
But I won’t
Not now
For everyone
And you
With eyes closed
Waste time
While
Victory approaches us
Slowly too but less slow
I will see it coming
I will help
I hope I will

Now I see
Three fires in the river back home
Where I have only and never belonged
My whole life

Now I see
Under all three bridges here
Only water
And there is so much I do not know
There is so much I do not know

Now I see
Basements were sanctuaries still
And it was only and more than a song
If we all sang

If we all now see
Under all three bridges here
Only water

That there is only one way that it flows
That there is only one way that it flows
That there is only one way that it flows

Waste no more time
Waiting for the light to shine
Waste no more time
Waiting for the light
Waste no more time
Waste no more time