Our Balcony Year

Oh, the freezing wind.
It cuts through our coats to our precious skin.
Caps, gloves and sweaters--uniforms to the city we live in.
We spend a lot of time in bars because our homes are only temporary.
Resigning our lives to one-year leases and the dying economy.
Third-floor apartment with a floor that's falling through.
A closet full of memories of everyone who came before you.
But we'll open up the windows and unhinge these wooden doors.
Share our stories with the ghosts until our throats are sore.
I'm still here.
Still holding on.
But not for long.
Like you, soon, I'll be gone.
Outside construction crews patch up the dirty street
in a failed attempt to bury the imperfections of a city.
Another summer, another home we need to find.
Another winter, put the plastic on the windows and tell ourselves we'll stay inside.
Wet-hair and subzero temperature is a formula for danger
that we will not remember through the desperation and the anger.
We watch the sky on rooftops and attempt to stop time,
to live these days forever,
never split up or divide.
I'm still here.
Still holding on.
But not for long.
Like you, soon, I'll be gone.
The end of an era comes with bus tickets and trains
as we pack our bags, spread out to the world and move away.
I'm not feeling very young these days as age makes its awkward embrace,
but I'll travel a million miles just to see your smiling face.
You can show me your new home.
Oh, how much you have grown.
The friends you've made.
The beauty you bring this place.
Just like home.
I'm still here.
Still holding on.
But not for long.
Like you, soon, I'll be gone.