He remembers a day from his youth...

Orange liquid streams from a tumbled treat
and fills sidewalk cracks near a heat-waved street.
Whimpers arise from the teary-eyed one
as the flat wooden stick dries in the sun.

Money exchanged for a hot day’s respite
in an unwrapped indulgence, he tried to hold tight.
Held for a moment, then slipped from his fingers
with the taste in his mouth, the memory lingers.

Dejected, downtrodden, frustrated, sad
with sodden, upturned eyes to his dad.
Expectant of something more to restore
the loss of his delicacy; “Please, some more?”

No more to be had, the currency spent,
in the hands of the man in the window it went.
The tears on his face in rivulets ran,
like the sugary brook flowing under the van.

Fast forward future, that day from his past
comes rushing to mind as he stands there aghast.
Phone in hand falls as his eyes well with tears.
The thought of all those incomplete years…

She told him she’s leaving, she’ll be gone tonight.
“I haven’t loved you for years, it hasn’t been right.”
No words or explaining, no reason, no love.
Just a lost lonely life, something undreamed of.

He feels like the child from that hot summer’s day
when something he wanted and loved slipped away.
And just like that moment the treat left his hand,
and just like a child who can’t understand…

That no amount of money or pleading in vain
will ever bring back what was lost once again.
But now as a man, he holds his head high
And faces the day, and his hardest goodbye.

He looks to the future…