The People We Used to be and the People We’re Not

All my days start with waking
From some insurmountable place
The top of a tree in my old neighborhood
A Plantation house in the south, standing on the roof
Looking down at the streets I don’t recall anymore
Seeing myself as the younger man
I no longer relate to
Drop me off in my old town
The streets not the way I remember them
One bleeds into another, into the next
A memory here, a misplaced footing here
A romantic embarrassment, the place I called home
Now inhabited by strangers who beat the walls senseless
And roam the streets
Looking for the maps
To places that don’t exist like they were
The people we used to be and the people we’re not
It’s the same everywhere and nowhere about.