Slow Burn City

Three in the morning and the streetlights bleed;

Rain on the window like a slow motion screed;

I don't sleep much, never really did;

Just watch the city breathe under a concrete lid;

Cab lights swimming through the smoke and the haze;

Everybody drifting in their own private maze;

I light one,

I won't finish, watch it curl and die;

Nothing much to say and even less to try;

And the neon writes a language on the wet cement;

Have a broken promise;

It's a slow burn city;

And I'm burning slow;

Down where the after hours people go;

No fire, no hurry;

Just an ember and a sign;

Slow burn city;

Under a sleepless sky;

Slow burn city;

And I don't ask why;

There's a jazz club open where the lonely ones convene;

Playin' to the ghosts and the in-betweens;

I'll take a corner table where the light won't reach;

Let the muted trumpet do the things

I couldn't teach;

Nobody's waitin' and nobody's late;

When you move this slow, you don't negotiate;

Just the drip of the gutter and the hum of the wire;

And the heart on the dimmer, never all the way to fire;

And the neon writes a language on the wet cement;

Half a broken promise;

Half a lost lament;

It's a slow burn city;

And I'm burning slow;

Down where the after hours people go;

No fire, no hurry;

Just a number and a sigh;

Slow burn city;

Under a sleepless sky;

Slow burn city;

And I don't ask why;

Maybe the morning finds me, maybe it don't;

Maybe I'll feel something, probably I won't;

And that's alright, that's the deal I made;

With the smoke and the shadows and the trade;

It's a slow burn city and

I'm burning slow;

Down where the after hours people go;

No fire, no hurry, just an ember in the side;

Slow burn city;

Under a sleepless sky;

Slow burn city;

And I don't ask why;

And I don't ask why. . .