It burns here too.

This city can't fit a love like ours
into the palm of her hands.
She carries men with locked eyes
on buses perfumed in piss. She carries
3 am screams, tatted concrete,
childhood dreams
acidified by vomit,
elementary school bathrooms
without running water.

And there are men who set themselves on fire
just down the block
and I think back to when Mephistopheles said that
hell is not a defined place but exists all around us.

So I don’t think the city cares much for a love like ours.
She’s busy balancing hell on her shoulders,
collecting the screams between the raindrops
and the whispers within the silence.