Friends Within the Darkness

I can remember starving in a small room in a strange city shades pulled down, listening to classical music I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife inside because there was no alternative except to hide as long as possible - not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance: trying to connect. the old composers — Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms were the only ones who spoke to me and they were dead. finally, starved and beaten, I had to go into the streets to be interviewed for low-paying and monotonous jobs by strange men behind desks men without eyes men without faces who would take away my hours break them piss on them. now I work for the editors the readers the critics but still hang around and drink with Mozart, Bach, Brahms and the Bee some buddies some men sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone are the dead rattling the walls that close us in.