they talk
with false bravado
making fun of
the rival town
that hasn’t been
anymore than
a reflection
of the ghost town
they live in
little people
puffing out their chests
knowing there is
a whole world
but never leaving
the same
fifty mile radius
following the path
laid out
by their daddy
who learned from
their daddy
repeating a cycle
of misdiagnosed nostalgia
longing for a time
that never existed
sometime always around
twenty years before
stretching back
to the one stupid fish
dumb enough to brave
the land

it all smells of
stale beer and smoke
rusted water and radon gas
a cemetery
there is no reason
to revisit
a closed chapter
on an ever dwindling
life’s story

there were good times before
we would have gone mad
if there hadn’t been
maybe they choose
to willfully forget
exchange yesterday’s sorrows
for carefully cut footage
maybe i wish i could as well
but ignorance is cyclical
sepia tones do not overwrite
lessons gone unlearned

every small town
has a rival i reckon
a place they can
happily look down upon
filled with the same
small minded folk
on and on and on
all the way back to
the first neanderthals
mocking the next valley

while depressed poets
put themselves above it all
shit stains spewing
semi literate trash
alone except for the rumble
of their empty guts
no sense of pride
in any goddamned thing
slaves to their own impulses
thankfully
no one reads