Shadow Town

Blackened eyes.
Blackened faces.
Broken smiles.
Crippled bodies.
Black rooms
Shared by many.
Stifling hot spaces,
In dark, shadowed places.
Shadows cast over
Eyes and faces,
Hiding traces
Of lies and promises
Left unkept.
Shallow breaths
Choke on scent
Of smoke and death.
Streets, like nightmares
Wind endlessly through the night.
Desolate buildings
Are haunted by the living.
Shallow stares touch a contracted horizon.
Black clouds of nothingness mask
The light of another lost day.
Stomachs churn with contempt
Of one another.
Hatred and disdain
Leave a dark stain on a dark world,
Shadowed by our greed and need
For a short-term fix.
Bricks are scattered
From structures never made.
Empty homes masked in darkness
Mark future graves.
In Shadow Town,
We starve for a light
We blotted ourselves
And will never find.