Hope?
    by
G. Matthew King

	The street light burns hollow and wet in the rain, more 
emphasizing the shadows than lighting the asphalt.  Clouds obscure the
stars, but if it wasn't clouds, it would just be the smog and smoke of
the city.  The city chokes itself slowly; a faster death wouldn't be as
much fun for some, I suppose.  Warehouses sit vacant and the windows are
broken out, looking like dull eyes staring into your heart.
	Sometimes you hear noises in the city.  A rubber sole scrunching 
on the pavement, and you turn and no one is there to be seen.  Then the
hair on your arms raise and your stomach sinks.  Your heart pumps faster
and you want to vomit up that cheap liquor you had earlier that night.
The night grows a bit darker and you rush to the next big party at
whatever pit of Hell it is being held in this time of night.
	The sour smell of wasting humanity greets your nostrils.  Sweating
bodies in the heat, bought and sold in some fashion or another.  Some are
already fucking and others are mixing alcohol with their drugs.  To each
their own kicks and one can't help but wonder how clean the needle really
is this time around.  It's all over anyway, just a matter of choosing how
one wants to die.  Burn out your brain on cocaine and a small river of
glass covers the streets in this neighborhood.  Death to the tires of
those who come driving through.  Even the gangs have given up on this
neighborhood.
	Morning will be bleak and shitty.  Mouth dry as cotton from the
beer and stomach acid when you lost the last round.  Wake up in a strange
place next to strange faces.  Almost recognizable; maybe you saw them
last week at another crash.  Doesn't matter when you just want to place
some more poison into the veins another night.  The sun streaks through
the dirty blinds and your eyes scream in their sockets.  Stumble to the
bathroom to kick someone out of the way.
	The air in the room is stagnant and the streets are empty.  About
as clean as it will ever get outside right now, before all the traffic on
the nearby expressway starts in for the week.   No noise, but when you
listen closely the blocks are wheezing their last.  A walk to clear the
head of the dust and cobwebs, and the sun is going to be high today.  The
roads brighten slowly as the sun makes its way between the buildings, and
a splash of true color greets you ahead.  A chain link fence, held in p
lace under its own rust and corrosion, cutting up lot after lot.  And
beyond the lines of metal there grows a single flower.  Stunted and worn,
dying from all the toxic garbage strewn around the lot.  But a real
God-damn flower.  Don't even know what kind, but it's real.  The nose
strains to smell and probably more of a thought than an actual scent.  One
real flower, dead by tomorrow, but it is the only thing found through the
tears, carried to the grave.  That one God-damn flower.
                                                4/16/98 & 4/18/98