My most persistent friends
have become six hours of jetlag
and the fading buzz of airline coffee--
as black and unforgiving as our red-eye flight,
as we wander German streets-- Füssen,
where the air is always crisp
and graceful, even awkwardly emerging
from an ugly winter.
Neuschwanstein castle sits mockingly
in the horizon-- the locals pass it by,
as I, some baffled foreigner
from Nowhere, Ohio,
where the streets bear gas stations
and the shameless scars
of recent construction (always
building, nothing built)
stand in disbelief.

Our thirst brings Jenny
and I to a Getränkeladen --
I sip on my first taste
of Apfelsaftschorle
as a roaring crowd
of local teens barge in,
with the violence of
a tornado we'd see in Xenia...
They speak in a crude,
indistinguishable slang
that Frau never could have
taught us
in room 322

Jenny hovers mindlessly
by the door-- contemplating
a bottle of Coca-Cola,
as the teenage stampede
shoves her off to the side--
fleeing out the door,
having bought nothing,
as the storekeeper sighs in disbelief.

They tore through
such a quaint little shop
with such an aimless recklessness,
one wouldn't think
a centuries-old castle
looms nonchalantly in the distance...

I was thirteen years old
and clueless--
Ben, who I believe is now
in juvie, and Ryan
stand on either side--
dumpy teenagers
in baggy clothes,
speaking in a crude,
brutal slang
that was invented in its usage.
We loitered every street
that would tolerate us,
in these exhausted Ohioan
suburbs, we tore through sidewalks
bearing unremarkable houses
in a sleepy neighborhood
with no grand castles nearby.

Our lazy strides, our ******
banter-- from Füssen, Germany,
to Who Cares, Ohio--
whether there's Neuschwanstein
or a Speedway to conquer,
there's never anything to do at home.

*So wie ist das Leben...