When it all got to be a bit too much
I reasoned my way into a corner
Sat there silent
Stapled my bottom lip to my convictions
And called it poetry

We all pretend to have ways to cope
Write a poem
Pretense and prophetic anthems
Some say it better than this
It’s harder with through staples
I didn’t know how to pull them out

So I learned to drive
Pressed mute minutes into the pavement
Pulled prayers from the asphalt
It’s all I was good at
Taking long steps

On the last night I lived there,
I stood on my mother’s front porch
Holding everything I was in one hand
Everything I could have been in the other
And clenched my fists like a fighter
Denied the daylight
Spit in the face of the night
Drowned expectations in the dawn

Counted 148 bricks between the front step and the streetlight
Illuminating 4 wheels and one way out
Kissed each brick with my boot heel
Packed my belongings in the backseat
And my longings in the bags beneath my eyes
Put pedal to promise
Peeled out and pretended
That we all run away

When it all got to be too much
I bit rubber into ground
And wrote myself a letter saying:

“Someday, kid,
Someday you’ll be found.”