every vote casts matter's

the bar down on 5th, voices clash like dice in a cup, old men with one eye left open, arms folded, tight, mutter about what doesn’t matter, what will never matter— but they walk, stumble, crawl to cast a scratch of ink. it’s a paper with too much power, too many voices pressed into the small, heavy hands of the damn, of the ones who only want to be heard just once, for their troubles, their lost lives buried under old rents, but tonight, they grip it, like something fierce, like holding on to a last drink, or last chance, and they shake their heads in quiet and whisper, “what does it change? what does it fix?” but still, they sign that little death, spit on the floor, pull open the door, and walk out like they’ve got something back.