After the lights go out

they come out when the lights
go out

not because they’re brave
but because that’s when the show ends
and the real city starts breathing.

you and me,
we pretend we’re not animals
because we can spell words like
mortgage
and promotion
and organic.

but the roaches--
the roaches don’t buy the lie.
they never signed up
for “potential.”
they don’t audition
for your approval
or your little gold-star morals.

they just survive.

i’ve watched them in cheap apartments
where the walls sweat
and the sink coughs up rust,
running along the baseboards
like they own the place--

and hell,
they do.

the landlord isn’t the boss.
the senator isn’t the boss.
your smiling manager
with the teeth like a game show
isn’t the boss.

the roach is the boss.

because the roach understands
what society keeps trying to forget:
everything breaks.
everything rots.
everyone goes hungry
if the checks stop coming.

in the daytime you’ll see people
in suits
with their polished shoes
and their clean hands,
talking about “values”
and “community”
and “growth,”

but at night
they scratch the same itch
in different ways—
they crawl through phone screens,
through bottles,
through strangers,
through the idea
that money makes you clean.

watch a roach long enough
and you’ll learn the truth
about progress:
it’s just a nicer kitchen
to beg in.

we sweep them up,
poison them,
call them filthy
like we aren’t drenched in it--

and still they return,
patient as debt,
quiet as shame,
unbothered by your speeches.

because they know
what the tired know,
what the broke know,
what the old bartender knows
at 1:15 a.m.
when the last dream tips poorly:

the world isn’t run by winners.
it’s run by whatever can endure
the most dark.

and the roach--
small, ugly, perfect--
doesn’t want your dream.
doesn’t need your myth.
doesn’t care about your future.

he just waits
under the fridge
through your whole shining civilization
like a joke
with legs.

and one night
when the power finally dies
and the city’s pretty face
slips off in the mirror—

you’ll hear it.

that soft, dry sound
of something living
moving forward
without applause.