Haight-Ashbury

they come from everywhere
they come from nowhere
rising out of the ground
fully formed and weird
they are ready to take on the day
they are ready to rape the night
they are
and somehow continue
so full of life
too full, in fact
and that unused potential
begins to rot inside their bones
it spreads into their skin and hair
it rots their teeth
it eats away brain cells and intelligence
and they are
somehow continue
on a march
slow and certain
toward a charitable grave
a victim
not of vice or circumstance
but of hubris
to think that one man mattered
in any of this ugly mess at all
they went to find themselves
they searched hard
and looked into strange mirrors
and in the end
they found no one
they found themselves:
nobody