My Town

The town I was born into was a grit incubating slum. It was the worst of places yet had some gruff-faced high-headed days. On those few times (days that did not seek to hammer me down into the brick and rubble strewn ground), I would walk like a lord-ling in my own spit-rinsed and grubby manor. I would swagger, daring all to cut the throat of any withering word or to blast the staring eyes and ogle-mouthed louts as they came at me, only to ski-daggle or sidle. In those long hours, in those dank drenched daylights I would fight knuckle-hardy and win then wear a trophy cut on my chin that ached in the stony-breathed air. I was a tough and scrawny king atop of his small heap and the town bowed down to me until the next day when it sought once more to murder my rough-hewn soul.