THE LATCH KEY KIDS
We are the infamous latch key kids,
feral dyed in the wool.
A free range generation raised up
grabbing the horns of the bull.
There was no one there, to tell us where
we could and could not go.
Adventure to be had, danger ain't bad.
A cool scar's quid pro quo.
Long past when the street lights came on
we howled and barked at the moon.
Party all night, lookin' for a fight.
then stayed in bed until noon.
Drinking, smoking, dropping, and worse
anything to escape.
The streets made us feel so alive.
Home a toxic landscape.
School of hard knocks, knocks you back.
They grew up, we survived.
Grizzled and rough, tattered but tough,
those who lived through it, thrived.
I’ve kept the bone-ash circle open—
chalked in wax traced from your last reply,
the one you coughed out sideways
between a mirror and an echo,
Just to reiterate, it read.
(Though you’ve unsent it now—
the smoke still mouths it back.)
The salt forgets which door to guard,
whether you're enemy or friend.
My tea leaves knot themselves
into nooses. The knife won’t keep
its edge unless I say your name
with my mouth full of soot. You know
who you are.
We only spoke three times—
I still remember your laugh.
I burned your coat—
the one already nicked at the cuff,
lined with lint and one of my hours.
The smoke limped east,
then circled back.
I still leave the latch loose.
Not for you—
just in case
some ghost with your gait
remembers how
my spine once knocked
like a drum left running.
There is a moon stuck inside the stoplight
A still unblinking gaze controlling blood tides
Circulatory system like New York City in the seventies
The thrashing of my tire fire heart led
To the tribute of an overzealous blood tithe
With the buzzing of the latch relay circuit
Night and day, the cosmic light switch clicks
Itself into place, there is no dusk or dawn
We are burdened to tread in the interchange
We are a gathering of werewolves, in need
Of a blood moon, craving catharsis and hope
There is no time to pencil in a reverie
A daily scene, like a living nightmare
Turning us into cybernetic lycanthropes
It's no true door without a latch,
After closure,still easy catch:
Robber to one's helpless things snatch;
A firm structure turns a bad thatch
And up with things one starts to patch!
It's no Good Gate which lacks a latch:
Could never an invader match,
Who'd across it march with his batch...
Woe to a door met as a batch,
Which carpentry needed a latch:
The Devil's plot agent shall hatch.
Doors unlocked
Opportunity knocks
Doors closed
Fears exposed
handcuffs latch
locked tight
key was lost
in time
never able
to be found
again
lost forever
within the
sands of
the hourglass
of the hidden
past self that
has ran away
never to break
free from the
glass prison
of the hourglass
of the subconscious mind
the soul
chanting again but
we are
latched unto the sky
before we die
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