This is a poem about the narrator scavenging and surviving off random bits of "food" that has been left over after the fall of the City of Lazarus. The people that decided to stay, or those that decided to move in, have to make the best of and sharing the scraps that they have and the bits of remnants from the rubble that they can find.
The nights are long and the hunger gnaws at my gut
I've been roaming these old abandoned restaurants like a rat
Scavenging for food, anything that'll keep me alive, scavenging any food I can find
There's ketchup packets and sugar packs, and that's what I'm after
I boil water and add the ketchup packets, then I add the sugar to a few cups of water
The taste is surprising good
Every few nights I make a pot of this soup to share
It helps us survive the cold and hunger that waits for us outside
I don't care if it's not the best tomato soup in the world
It's better than nothing
Survival Tip: "A warm belly makes a cold night a bit better." - the old hermit that roams the old mall, the mall that was abandoned long before the end times.
This was a poetic tale from the city of Lazarus, A dystopian metropolis half sunken in the sea, along with ai art created with stable diffusion / Midjourney Version 4 inspired by the words of the poem. War and climate change took its toll on this and every other city we know. This is one of many short tales of a young woman and her daily life surviving in the ruble of the modern world.
I am adding individual poems to a collection that I plan on eventually publishing into an ebook.
💔Here are a few links to some of the other poems about the dystopian City of Lazarus:
@concreteshallows/where-hope-is-a-luxury
@concreteshallows/the-schoolhouse
@concreteshallows/the-fall-of-lazarus
