5:00 Shadow

A quiet gray sky hungover,
clouds of smoke and haze,
whispers secrets of the night before,
party shirts and party whores.

Blood runs down the gutter,
Streaming to what is below,
reminiscent of the bloodless stare,
parental hopes and dreams a tease.

A cigarette burns lonely,
half put out on the street,
mocks burnouts with no burn,
aspirations come and gone and lost.

A can perched on a curb,
half-filled, half-chilled, and half-past-twelved,
glints a somber blue reflection,
in a puddle of its own sloppy creation.

All the while a girl lies in the grass,
face-down in a pool of impaired drama,
speaks volumes for a generation,
the best minds lost to apathy, not madness.