I abandoned myself here, cemented to this place.
For now, it was an end, a home of concrete.
The stoop crushed beneath my cheek.
My disinterested view of a bleached sky,
disturbed by no passers by.
Alone, either the world or I had become timeless.

Stubborn brick buildings squatted near.
With peeling advertisements, they stared, curious at my inertia.
Less understanding, less sympathetic, the steel awning,
a ceiling to my new abode, shuttered, whined.
Its constant shifting a complaint, urging me to move along.
Its argument a reminder, I did not belong, here.

We would have to come to an understanding.
As solidly as its steel frame was anchored here, so my body was bolted to the ground.
The self-depricating scratch on my mind’s record had caught my thoughts securely in its tread.
The ground beneath just as attracted to my bones.

As long as time had ceased, the only movement will be this argument between
the steel without,
the steel within.