First Responder

By Holding Patterns

On Endless

Thumbnail

Once so proud and tall

It’s worse not expecting falls

Don’t think of it as home

Don’t think of it as anything

When we’re just out of reach

Put out a call for your last name

But the calls keep coming back to me

Around we searched for hours

We looked for days until we dropped

Remember this

You know

Fresh set of bandages

Replacement eyes and ears

We chalked the lines

We walked them out

As birthdays came and went

Without you there

And say to yourself

"This’ll be perfect when I’m done

If I’m ever done"

Waste an hour or two

Staring up at six of six

Brave or brazen

She was a little bit of both

A torn-up sketchbook

Of yesterday’s forgotten future

Some 50ft high heaven

A shrine to blinking lights

Put out a call for your last name

But the calls keep coming back to me

By intimate design

Far too bold to be lifeless

As they tear you down

They’ll judge on the lives you took

Not the time you saved

So hard to see this go

Struck off the map

And now we’re floating debris in the breeze

An island only

Put out a call for your last name

But the calls keep coming back to me