Sunken into Memory

We sit where we caused controlled
chaos twenty-five years previous.
The same walls with the remnants
of badly cleaned tags, which remain
as ingrained as those who tried to
remove them.

We reflect on disappointments;
the sickness from the first pint,
the mundanity of 'festivals',
the sheer brevity of promised
stability; toil was another pointless
vice we adopted, if only to remove
the sound of stigmas from our ears.

The jagged excuses for streets
still embrace the the same lit
windows, like fairy lights
on fern trees, never bright
enough to light any pathways,
the pavements still the same,
but with different dimensions,
and with only shards of our memories.

We both rise in questionable sobriety,
as dusk overcomes this afternoon,
the faces of locals we fail to recognise,
as we both take solace in this enforced
shared solitude, we take stock of our actions
and claim our presence one last time,
our backs melded into the central reservation.