For Mark
His home is always
where he is –
Beneath the trestles
of clattering trains, he huddles
in the damp & sandy wind,
eyes across the ocean,
sandwich crumbled,
filthy in his coat pocket
His home is just
where he is –
Now inside a box behind a dumpster in the middle of downtown nowhere,
surrounded by the
bizarre aroma-therapy of steaming, festering garbage
His home is exactly
where he can
no longer go –
Inside the placid, welcoming walls
of the house
where his sanity lives
~~~
He stumbles, aching,
crying from his
wretchedness,
crying from his soul –
His pants encrusted
with what he could not leave behind,
His hands
clutching a desperately empty bottle,
His hair in stringy,
unkempt ribbons,
slapping his face in the wind
~~~
He, trapped & terrified
in a life beyond his living,
seeks suicide
by public transportation,
wishing it could all
just be over
Wishing he could somehow
force his feet to take his body
into the path
of the oncoming bus –
But the driver
will not mow him down,
will not have him on her conscience –
She refuses his anguished gift
of responsibility
& slams the bus to a squealing,
furious, bone-shaking stop
& screams at him
"NO!
I will not do it!"
Sad, relieved, horrified, pleased,
he views the scene as
one more evidence
of his beleaguered, hated,
ridiculed immortality
And laughs his drug-indentured way
back to the motel
which has a dumpster
behind which he can once more
box himself in
until he thinks he can afford to
take the public transportation system on
again,
And maybe this time, he’ll
find his win,
he’ll
be successful
And never have to live
inside these walls of pain
(again)
which he only knows as home
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