We met in the Fall
I had just broken for the second time
Little did I know
It wouldn’t be the last

He was an imposing man
Claimed he was eighty-two
But pride and muscle clung to him
Defying the years

We tried some small talk
This tumbleweed town felt so lonely
Like a lot of places back then
I was just passing through

And yet my usual prepared script wasn’t enough
Perhaps he was trying to find a way
To pass the time
The questions kept coming

His pressing curiosity was well placed
After all, why had I turned down that dusty road
To here?
On the way to nowhere, and nowhere you’d wish to be

I bristled some
Hadn’t been tested in a while
Beyond the sparse niceties one encountered
From one stop to the next

Eventually I relented
To the stranger’s confessional
Gifted him my honesty, knowing-
I would never see him again

But as I spoke
He already knew my secrets
Everyone here did
In this truck stop diner of lost souls

I fumbled out the truth
The Old Man took in every word
Transported back
To when he himself, had first broken

“I wish I could feel the ocean again…”
He clutched at my hands and pried them open
“Go… Be reborn for me.”
In my hands: keys to the way home

That day as I sped out of town
His past and thoughts of a misspent future
Maintained pursuit
-I never stopped to look behind

Ezy Reading is out every month