everyday I walk past the same bus stop searching for a familiar face in the windows
I couldn't tell you how many times the bus stops there each day but I can remember each time the memories begin in my fingers and ended in the tears on my cheek and how often the driver closes the door so fast that it busts on my face like my windshield did last Christmas break and how I sat and listened to each piece of glass cutting into me like the words of my father whose religion was drinking himself to death
everyday I walk past the same bus stop with the same people at the same hour and I wonder how often they go home to shaking bodies and broken bones and how many times that door gets slammed in their face so hard that they remember every time he grabbed her too hard and how she would claw the door for someone to pull her up for air or how often they almost got away but they didn't press the gas hard enough or the window wasn't high enough
and I wonder how many of the innocent souls on the damaged bus have seen the light after they've been in the dark for so long