I grew
up in one of those towns
where
both sides of the track were the wrong side.
It was a
place of indecision
where
the river flowed in both directions.
Every
street was a one way street
even the
dead ends.
A place
where failure was always an option,
in fact
it was the most likely outcome.
There
were no winners here
just
boarded up storefronts and abandoned factories.
We
climbed through holes in chain link fences
and
dared each other to ascend the piles
of
dangerous leftovers from discarded American dreams.
Tall,
dark, concrete buildings
with
randomly placed holes in the floors
that
vent shafts or steam pipes once occupied.
We rode
our bikes through vacant gravel lots
long
before the government had labeled them
“Superfund
Sites.”
The
older kids taught the younger ones
how to
play with matches without getting burned.
There
was little left to ignite however,
anything
that would burn had already been incinerated long ago.
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