Imposter Syndrome

 "imposter syndrome"

here's where i once staggered home
shrouded in fear, badgeless.
glass bottle crash and cigarette burns
fine powder turned blue and 
curtains of April rain unrelenting.
the spot where i tripped
on crooked sidewalk, slow motion
It all can happen in an instant.

It all can happen in an instant.
This is where she hung up on me 
On a payphone. my last quarter
here is where i spit blood on the asphalt
red red and holy

I don't think there's a trace 
of any of us now (decades later)
layers of old streets: a grid, neutral.
oil stains. trash. Messages on every
wall, cryptic, unknowable. Roadkill.
Dead architects of a system struck dumb
and migrained with bad moonshine
Unblinking and detached like an old God.
My new car drifts through the night
in silence, an icon on a vector map
its contents: a ghost of somebody else
that no one ever really knew