What a piece
of mental sanctuary
your name held
before you thought
of traveling to
the door.

Your tires sped off
in the direction of tomorrow
while I sat below a streetlight in
the wasteland of yesterday.

Its artificial glow created
silhouettes of occasional by-passers.
(Their footsteps scraped against cold
pavement and the sound reverberated
in my ears like your name.)

Car engines echoed from blocks
over and I mistook them as whispers
from ghosts of our clouded past- reminding me
that we were both once children of the open road;
although, I’m now orphaned on familiar lines of double yellow.

I should have realized my heart was thin, fragile
paper before you wrote
on its surface in pen.