When abandon runs dry

For the Contest: Abandon Sponsor: Constance La France Written 20.05.2025 To live with abandon is to spend your soul as if the tab will never come, but it always does – by poet When abandon runs dry He spent money with merry abandon. Tossed akin to confetti in events of fleeting joy He kept no tabs, no ledger, there was no tomorrow. He moved through life as a flame burns through paper. Notes flew from his hands the way birds scatter startled by gunshots. There was no guilt in his pockets. He opened the tap and shouted the bar People called him legend and slapped his back Till the wind changed and downturn came Then silence frosted all the beer steins The barstools cooled and the phones stilled he found himself orbiting absence nobody patted his shoulder, nobody flipped a coin in his cup, He had poured himself into the room And when the keg ran dry, all the lychees vanished. They all abandoned him. He doesn’t speak of it now, just nods and smiles with that tired kindness you only learn after the last music notes.