Goner

Goner

In the dim‑lit lane behind the old cinema,
a figure slips, shoulders hunched against the rain,
each step a whisper on the wet pavement,
a sigh that the wind carries away like old tickets.

They call him a goner – a soul already half‑lost,
not yet vanished, but teetering on the brink,
where the neon flickers like a hesitant heartbeat,
and the night holds its breath, waiting for the final cue.

He pauses beneath the flickering sign of the chip shop,
the scent of vinegar and fat curling around him,
a fleeting comfort in a world that has already
written his name in the margin of tomorrow's newspaper.

Yet even a goner can dare to dream,
to imagine a dawn where the rain stops,
where the pavements dry and the theatre lights
fade in on a second act he never got to see.

So he walks on, the city humming a low, discordant tune,
each footfall a question mark pressed into the cobbles,
hoping that somewhere, beyond the fog and the farewells,
the story might still find a gentler ending.