on this street, nothing that matters is audible.
all the silent people sit
still, in the gutters, trapped in their thoughts.
in the gutters, we tune
out the numbingly trivial banalities of the street,
hearing only the crackling inside
our skulls, identical to that of the over-used radio
tubes that explode red-hot and violently
quiet under pressure.
when my final tube shatters
in its farewell, a tremor shakes
my body, and settles on my teeth,
wrapping itself tightly around my jaw, and dripping
heavy, slowly, quiet from my lips,
taking the form of a single
silent revelation.
it went something like:
“this is how we all decay.”