#devin dion

Chicago,

            you don’t scare me like you used to.

  Your long, lake shore arms screamed

across such posh palaces

while nightmares nested in the many pockets

where the sun couldn’t poke through.

  You had regimens of restless soldiers

that seemed to stand as tall as the towers

they tumbled through with hair-splitting looks

that all ended with the same animosity.

  I don’t need nightlight safety

to walk on your frozen rivers of concrete,

and the nickel-dime symphonies danced in the cups

of lost souls now play

like idle music in the background.

  Chicago,

            you aren’t the graveyard I’d hate to die in alone.

You’re history exposed and mapped out

in checkerboard hide and seek.

  I feel the electricity that smothers lungs

in thick light pollution

between the bars and empty alleys,

kickstarting my heart like a kiss of adrenaline.

  I want to watch your mascara run

as you tell,

broken down,

that love is a wildfire you never get back

cascading in a dreamless sleep that leaves you

but not really.

  Chicago,

            I missed you with firefly ferocity

that only five year olds feel.

So hold me in your skyline hands and I’ll swear

to swirl this smog

into a song.