It is an elemental strain, this life I lead, this mostly quiet
moment I occupy right now…waiting for the next, waiting
for more than my share and hating all the time and
for waiting all the time and not knowing…next or
next or next or next.  I think as much as I don’t of
the smallish, kind of sort of farm-like mini-industrial
town where I grew up, where my shadow used to fall
across the path behind me, across the millions of
moments spent urging thoughts outward, spent pushing
to get gone, get done, get body and soul aligned
toward an end a finish a completion without death in
that simple silent small town where life wasn’t.  Almost
an hour from Detroit in a Midwest no-mans land I am
not there and glad and motionless in my thoughts as
it is still a vestigial appendage, that small town thinking, that
desire to hold close and talk slow and mean nothing
beyond the day the game the grades the girls the means
to an end never seen never known never lived.  I see
others through older eyes busier lives and wonder why
some leave some stay some having never been before
all know the where what how of small town moments of
feelings lost, of emotions never had saw felt…of
knowing who is on the other side of the door without
opening it to look.  Sitting here in my perspective long
removed from there, I watch from cornered eyes from
long distance and without thinking…why…I wonder
and wait for awareness that I am convinced will never
come because the small town was never in me, I was
only ever in the small town for the million minutes that
it felt…that it was.  I can’t hate the small town, can’t decide
what it is anymore except a place where my shadow
used to fall on the path
behind me…but for that I am glad sad mad and always
not there because inside of me I never was.