They Were Me

They Were Me

In the glass shards I see the city children
Throwing balls against the very bricks
Where bottles shattered dreams,
In the playground there
Where asphalt meets chainlink fenced in
Sanity— in vanity, they were me.

Busy cars zipped obliviously by
Bounding away around about and gone.
Cement bluffs lined our valley of slag and gems,
An abandoned parking lot down beneath the street,
The playing field of our dreams and aspirations
Speckled with sharp indiscriminate shards
Calling for careless hands and knees,
Disrupting another perfect day running
With a bloody palm and teary eyes.

In the glass shards the city children gather
To lament their stricken fellow there
Where the ball bounces beyond broken glass reveries
Into the street of mindless cars, and gone,
Like a dream that never happened,
But I have the scar to prove it,
And I know they were me.