Lost World's Shadow

by: E.M. Burlingame

I swung at the world with a drunk’s fists,
back when my bones were new
and my brain was a gutter.
I traded my knuckles for a paycheck
and a cheap scotch, called it manhood—
letting the streetlights blur into sermons.

Now I’m propped here, a cigarette
burning down to its last wince,

body aching in places it shouldn’t,
the clock coughing like a dying engine.
Regret’s a barfly who won’t shut up:
You could’ve cracked the sky open,
instead you polished their chains.

We licked the boots of desks,
built pyramids to nothing,
let our veins fill with ledger dust.
Now this fight’s for it all
gnawing its way up in some alley—
and me? I’m the whiskey-stained
stub of an old joke, laughing
as the night spits its last tooth.

Christ, to feel that old hunger—
the kind that chews through steel,
not this rotgut ache in mind and soul.
But these days are a busted jukebox,
repeating the same sad song:
You were something once.
Now you’re barely a man

Thank all the Old Gods
This one last fight remains.