Stillness

In that town the sons of working men live in piles of sawdust, shadowed by their father’s figures.

The daughters of the same settle for what is given them, hoping only to find love, in repression.

That town, where chalk sits flat and the rain is called on short notice to make us forget.

Crabapples, ammunition of the angry children, grow in plenty while the minds of those pitching dry from lethargy.

The lampposts that illuminate downtown are just a show for the bored youth, wanderers in avoidance of their home’s dusty leather glow

And just as the families of loving parents grow irritated in boredom and separate, the grass on every lawn splits and patches, leaving good ground for the bugs to nest.

Though apart from it now, far past that place,

I do feel that I belong there.

Even as I live free in thought and emotion, progressive and cut free from guilt,

I miss the stillness.