Escaping the City
Blood moon
thinking of the gun
her ex-boyfriend bought her.
Driving all night
at speeds to make suicides
laugh one last time.
Give me again the stars
that filled your eyes
when we first exchanged words
and called them ours
stolen by dreams of terrorists.
Further removed
inside my arms
between the gunfire.
Wanting to leave this city
this decayed monument
to vanquished hallucination and war.
It’s broken screams equal parts
clandestine passion and our dying rage.
I blink and snowflake
on her tongue vanishes.
Gas rations
shivering in winter
only the cigarette burns
we leave the war zone
barely daring to hope.
©2022 Rp Verlaine All rights reserved.
Rp Verlaine, a retired English teacher living in NYC, has an MFA in creative writing from City College. He has several collections of poetry including Femme Fatales Movie Starlets & Rockers (2018) and Lies From The Autobiography 1-3 (2018-2020). Rp’s work has been featured in Punk Noir, Ygdrasil, and Runcible Spoon.