The End of Our Days

By Corey Dolgon

Early without warning I’m awake before the dawn and I can see the breath of morning as it breaks into the room and I can hear something heavy on my head and on my soul and I don’t what it is yet but it’s pounding on my bones and it’s tugging at my heart what could it be, some no longer dulled anxiety or maybe it’s a memory that fell fast into my dreaming and now it’s hanging closely even though I’m not quite sleeping and maybe it will never come again or maybe it will hang on til the end of my days.

Last night I had a drink and then I had another drink and I was just about the brink of drunk when I had another drink, but I did not want to think about how much I’d had to drink because there were worse things to think about than what I’d had to drink like the first time that I looked into your eyes we danced amidst the city’s watchful skies, and the first time that we walked and held our hands down by the river and we watched the burning sunset and we talked about the future, and we wondered what the world our way might send, would we be together til the end of our days

I stumbled down the sidewalks of the backroads of the city where the starlit sentried shadows keep track of all this history like the hallowed shells of factories standing rusted all but empty where once proud workers disappeared into a modern mystery, did they see the world was changing rapidly--that profits wouldn’t need their industry--or did they just keep going satisfied to make a living and to keep their families growing and to keep their dreams forgiving; did they hope that God might make amends or did they fight the good fight til the end of their days

Now the day is moving and the city streets are running and I know too well what’s tearing up my insides that are burning, but I think there might be something I could say to make a difference but every vein I have’s exhausted every fight’s for perseverance and the politics of memory pave the way--we remember just to dream another day--and last night I had a vision that the side we’re on was winning and power of our love was just the passionate beginning that proved the cynics missed it once again, we would keep on struggling til the end of our days.