Feast of the Forgotten
A woman sleeps beneath the billboard, graced by faces she’ll never touch
Plastic saints in Calvin Klein, their smile a promise,
but the rain’s too much.The city’s veins are broken glass and urine,
bus exhaust for prayer
She curls beneath a neon “SALE”
that flickers above wet hair.Her blanket’s newsprint—yesterday’s war
and tomorrow’s meal
And the man beside her mutters to ghosts who tell him pain’s not real.Cars pass,
faces glow, no one asks her story or her goddamn name
They post their breakfast, double tap the sunlight, call her ruin,
call her shame.In a city built to swallow grief,
her body is a footnote on the street
Invisible, like childhood dreams erased by scuffed and swollen feet.
The veterans cough on rust, the mothers bargain warmth for one more night
Each “bless you” thrown by strangers weighs a thousand pounds and feels
like spite.Their birthdays rot in shelters,
every holiday a test—Beneath a skyline made of want,
the world just scrolls and laughs and rests.Once,
he fought for flags and strangers—bloodied sand and broken back—Now,
he builds his shelter out of bottles, stacks his medals,
sleeps in black.No parade for bones like his, no anthem sung for her soft hands
Just a feast of mold and wrappers, faith replaced by piss-stained brands.
Dusk brings cold, the shadows stretch, the bar’s last call is charity
She wears her scars like lipstick—cheap, defiant,
and unruly.A dog-eared Bible in a plastic sack, a cross made out of spoons
The only congregation left are rats
who shuffle in the shadows of the moon.They watch the church doors close,
they watch the rich rehearse their prayers
And dream of tables laid with bread not stolen,
rooms without a hundred stares.The world will sell their stories when they’re dead,
a photo op for “change,”But tonight, the banquet’s just a graveyard,
and the guests are all estranged.
Remember this: the city’s angels do not glow, they shiver in the rain
Their names don’t trend, their deaths are silent,
but their hunger stays the same.If there’s justice,
let the kings of plenty serve them scraps and pour their wine
For every dollar tossed in pity,
let a crown be left to rust in brine.And when the gates are closed for good,
and heaven’s feast has lost its light
The only worth that matters was the hands that clung to life in blight.