The Ballad of Alexander Wood
Last night I dreamt of a roadside stop—
an ice cream truck near a rusted shop.
Its engine was spent, its music was low,
and something inside told me I should l go.
I stepped through the door because I could,
and met a man by the name of Alexander Wood.
He wore a bowtie and a crooked smile,
a paper hat, and clothes out of style.
He spoke of great justice, broken and bent,
of love misplaced and poorly spent.
Then he paused and asked with a paper cup,
“Would you like a taste while we catch up?”
We sat in booths made of rotting wood
and talked of flavors both bad and good.
There were waffles stacked high, and scoops that stung—
some dripped with joy, and some bit the tongue.
One cone glittered like shattered glass,
another had needles, cold as brass.
He said, “Not all that’s sweet will soothe—
some truths must sting to make us move.”
He told me tales of a dog long gone,
of silence thick and nights too long.
I offered mine: the aching weight,
the brittle smile, the meals I’d fake.
He nodded slow, as if he’d bled
the same pale ghosts that I had fed.
“Vanilla,” he said, “with a heart cut deep—
for things we carry and cannot keep.”
I stared at the bowl; it looked like a wound.
He looked through me, then down at the spoon.
And softly said, “What grief won’t end,
we fold, we churn, and we learn to bend.
A wound won’t heal just because you wait—
but love will still grow in a different shape.
You can cry in the cracks or sing through the pain,
but either way, you’re not the same.”
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