I feel the weight of my life
collapse upon me, the crushing
beauty of ordinary days, all
those moments lost to time.
I run past tombstones in neighborhood
lawns, gone when I look back.
I can only assume they belong
to me, these ghosts who share
my past. Try as I might, I can’t
outrun the abandoned buildings,
windows knocked out like teeth,
the dead end streets, the broken
men who live in the park among
the trees. I tell myself to keep going,
don’t look back, and I wouldn’t
if I didn’t feel like we are already
dead and just don’t know it yet.
Michelle Brooks has published a three collections of poetry, Make Yourself Small, (Backwaters Press), Pretty in A Hard Way (Finishing Line Press), and The Pretend Life (Atmosphere Press), and a novella, Dead Girl, Live Boy, (Storylandia Press). A native Texan, she has spent much of her adult life in Detroit.