Beyond The Tracks Poem by Daniel Ryan Cotler

Beyond the tracks
where the streetlights twitch like dying neurons,
and the pavement bleeds secrets no one wants to know
veins map escape routes,
silver highways carved by godless hands
chasing that sweet, slow fade
that feels like love
if you're desperate enough.

I was.

A needle hums
in the opera of trembling flesh
the last lullaby
before silence swallows the scream.
It doesn't whisper.
It sings.
And I let it.
Because pain is predictable.
But love?
Love lied with perfect teeth
and I kissed every one.

The world blurs
colors decay into ash,
time collapses into molasses,
and for one divine second,
I forget how to want.
I forget how to breathe.
I forget the taste of begging.
For one moment,
the ghosts hold me like they used to.
And I forget.
That they never were.

Beyond the tracks,
bodies rot upright,
bones draped in skin like wet laundry
eyes wide open,
but no one's home.
They shuffle.
They twitch.
They barter hope for seconds.
They pray to anything
that'll answer with a high
instead of a memory.

Once
there were hands.
Warm ones.
Once
there were voices
that didn't sound like sirens.
Now?
The only thing calling my name
is the wind
cold,
cruel,
as the steel rails pressed to my chest
at 3am
when I wonder if this is the time I don't wake up.

The city doesn't care.
It forgets us.
But the track marks don't.
They speak in scars.
They spell out elegies.
They scream:
Look what I survived.
Or maybe
look what's still killing me.

And you
my unfortunate ghost
my beautiful fiction.
You were the wound that smiled back.
You were a mirror with fangs.
A mouth full of "I love you"
that tasted like gaslight.
You held me just long enough
to hollow me out
and blame me
for the draft.

Loving you
felt like home invasion.
And I kept unlocking the door.

You fed me venom
with your Sunday voice.
You broke me with lullabies.
You baptized me in confusion
and called it devotion.
You lit the match
then begged me not to burn.

You taught me
that heartbreak doesn't echo
it haunts.
That grief doesn't end
it loops.
And I still chase you
in the burn of every hit
because I don't know
how to grieve someone
who never existed.

Beyond the tracks,
I float through the wreckage of myself.
Flesh,
bone,
ash,
memory
stitched together
by the lies I called survival.

There is no sunrise here.
Only flickers.
Only tremors.
Only breath that tastes like maybe.

But still
in the echo of my ribs,
in the scream behind my teeth,
in the gravel of my spine,
I whisper:

I'm still here.
Even if no one ever was.
Even if I don't know who I am without the war.
Even if the only thing I've won is breath.

I'm still here.
I'm still holding on
And that,
That in itself still means something.