The night had no map.
Just rain on the pavement,
smoke curling beneath the street-lamps,
and that old brass moon
hanging crooked over the city.
I stood at the corner
with a suitcase full of bad decisions
and a heart that had learned
not to ask too many questions.
There was no sign.
No trumpet from heaven.
No voice from the back room saying,
This way, kid.
Your destiny’s waiting.
Just two roads.
One went uptown.
One disappeared into the dark.
So I flipped a coin.
It landed crooked.
Funny thing about fate—
it ain’t always clean.
Sometimes it wears a cheap suit,
lights a cigarette,
and slides into the booth beside you
without giving its name.
We call it chance.
We call it trouble.
We call it
Tuesday night.
The road twisted
like a saxophone solo after midnight—
slow, dirty, beautiful,
bending where it pleased.
I lost friends at crossroads.
Lost money in back rooms.
Lost pieces of myself
in places I swore
I’d never return to.
And still—
the band kept playing.
Some nights
the rain came down so hard
the city looked like it was drowning.
Some nights
the pavement shone like silver
and every doorway
looked like salvation.
But salvation, sweetheart,
has a funny address.
Sometimes it’s a wrong turn.
Sometimes it’s the bottle
you shouldn’t have emptied.
Sometimes it’s the stranger
who says,
Keep walking.
So I did.
Past the shuttered clubs.
Past the cops and the con men.
Past the promises
painted gold on rotten walls.
I kept walking.
Because maybe destiny
ain’t something written in stone.
Maybe it’s written in smoke—
there one second,
gone the next,
rewritten every time
we choose to keep moving.
And somewhere
beneath the midnight horns,
beneath the rain,
beneath every mistake
I ever called my own,
I heard the city whisper:
Kid,
there ain’t no perfect beginning.
There’s only the door.
The street.
The next bad decision.
So open it.
Step out.
Let the night take your hand.
And if the road disappears—
hell,
dance anyway.
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Wow! Loved this poem! The voice really carried it, and the wisdom spoken is street talk was so refreshing. Really felt myself out there with him. So Noir.
Thank you so much, Deborah. I must admit, in my mind I hear Tom Waits & Louis Armstrong speaking the words… this one had touch of some old Mickey Spillane gangster as well. So, yes, very “noir”.