a place to leave

it's the same.
this town.
this place where you lived
as a child.
the buildings
are all here, the houses,
streets
and wires across
the tall stiff poles.
the barbed fence around
the market,
the boarded store,
the field
of concrete
where you threw a ball.
nothing has changed.
the same glass
broken.
the same empty bottles
of gin
and beer.
the same old men
on the corner, whispering
madly to no one.
even the faces of children
in the windows
have not changed.
it's the same. only
the world around it
has changed,
become different,
and indifferent to
what this place has
always been.
a place to get out of.