no one knew how i felt except
for all the dusty back roads
in their dreary isolation and brokenness.
i spent countless hours standing outside
the entrance of the buckaroo tavern
with stephanie when i was 3 years old
because daddy was too *******
wasted to drive home. the heat waves
from that broken down neon sign
during the frosty seattle winter of 2001
felt like a security blanket at times
if i pretended hard enough,
i felt like there was something in
the big bad world that actually cared for me.

-*z. vega