Malt Memories

I walked past cracked top-floor windows and boarded-up doors Past rubble and ruin and bits of the floor on the street Every blank brick tagged with huffers and heat And an overwhelming sense that you'd been beaten The air it hung heavy with humid humility Every half sentence inept of ability To properly explain the pain and the hurt The way things are now and the way things were And it's hard not to know when your time is up but it's harder admitting you've had enough And after everything we shared I still care so much about you But we've been watching something great bloat and stagnate And our best years liquor up and limp away As hard as it is now scrapping hope for this house and this family I'll always have your ink under my skin And on the dead grass and leaves and assorted debris I sit and I toss back some malt memories Of you calling my name from the top of the city Telling me when I tried to believe That what still lives in me Is selfless and sacred not selfish and mean So I slink back into the dark district, meet up with friends And drink myself sick from the things that I've said And what passes my lips, what lives under my skin How my left shoulder hurts when the temperature trips Our lives revolve around forged signatures and luck Our lives are funded by five-dollar door charges and love