The Yellow Digger

the railway tracks hum all night like a drunk’s heartbeat, and come seven in the morning, the yellow bastard starts gnawing the street — teeth filthy, breath of diesel and broken stone — ripping up clean concrete that never hurt nobody, hunting for pipes for a wage so that some engineer can feed his kids, pay the rent, keep the sad circus rolling.

me, I’m curled under a coat that smells like yesterday’s vomit, trying to squeeze one more hour of black sleep out of the world, because tomorrow’s just another bottle and another fist in the gut, and the only thing between me and the gutter is this thin, rotten mattress.

the digger doesn’t care; it laughs in iron and keeps chewing.

a baby is crying through some thin wall upstairs, a neighbour counts out pennies on a window ledge, and me, I’m just pissing warmth down my own leg, listening to the city eat itself alive again. same as always. same as tomorrow. God’s own hangover hammering nails into this cunting skull of the world.

the digger has work.
the engineer has a wage.
I have this doorway.