Roman Wilderness

A Poem by Lauren

he roams the streets like he’s lost
au contraire, because it’s here,
he’s found himself
carrying bags of wisdom
in his arms, in his mind
bringing his shoulders down
he feels tired, though
tired used to feel different
like the morning after a long night
now tired is sleeping for three hours
in an uncomfortable bed

in the mornings
after late nights with patchy memories
he’s without reason to rise, except, perhaps
the parisian sunlight that pervades the curtains
interrupting the sleep he’d lost
and was trying to catch up on
what he hadn’t caught
falling asleep on an empty stage
he goes for a walk

people like flies
checking their watches
speaking in foreign tongues to little ones
there’s a lady, she’s staring;
leans over to her lover
and whispers into his ear
about the man with the dark hair
lying carelessly on the cobblestones
how he looks like a man
she used to love more

the same sunlight that roused him
now shines in his eyes
blinding
reminds him of a time
back in his prime
when the words he sang
would echo back
from the lips of the crowd
he waits for the music
misses a cue-
but there’ll be another
he closes his eyes
swaying to an unknown rhythm

this he misses
so he makes a phone call home
a plan, no more than a drunken idea
seems perfect in the moment
why they’re just happy to hear his voice-
to ask where, and when
they’ll see him again
and as he says his goodbyes
hangs up
he picks up his twelfth bottle
of the night
far from the last
and he leans back, content

and as quick as that
the show is over
the dream falls away

and the star has left the stage

there is no applause

and certainly no encore

the water’s long since gone cold
spilling on the floor
like a metaphor
a sadistic irony
for it wasn’t that long ago
he joked that he’d be next
and so he was
with the words he meant to sing
dying on his lips
blue with mortality