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Feb 2019
This train ride
Is the only thing that connects us now
It is the only thing left that’s running
From me to you
It is the only thing that’s still moving

For once I am back,
I am not leaving again
Once I am home
I am not leaving it behind

I made this mistake once
Of thinking I could have left
Everything that killed me
That tortured me and pursued me
All of the pain that subdued me
But escape isn’t possible for the thing
That is in me
You need to know, my love
Because I know, now
This pain created me

And I owe it to this pain to let it destroy me

See I am sitting and I can tell something isn’t right
This train moves too quick and the breaks seem too tight
And as a whole the train itself is shaking to be loose
And if this train tips over, there is nothing you or I can do

We have to let this happen
We have to let us die
I keep thinking of how many people are on here
With more valuable lives than mine

It’s not because I’m lonely
And it’s not because I’m me
It’s because even back in my small space there with you
I’m so insignificantly free

I’m going back
Because I realize this is all I’ve known
This feeling of being nothing
Makes it so much more plausible

Makes it so much easier to understand
I have lived this way forever
And it only makes sense
To go back to feel it there

It only makes sense
To leave you behind
Because if I take you with me
Then we’re both going to die

This train ride
Is the only thing that connects us now
These tracks that run through the one island we’re on
You are on my island, the island I’ve lived on my whole life
And there’s so much of it you haven’t seen
And there’s so little you know of me

Your entire life in a different state
Is my entire life with you here
Because although you have come to me
You know nothing of what I used to be

You know nothing of what I’ve done,
What I’ve become
Where I’m going
What I want
In this life that keeps insisting otherwise

I realize this train is my lifeline
Once it stops, the movie is over
The song is done
And there are no more wonders about
If we’ll ever be something

No more worrying
No more drinking
No more thinking of me
But never being open to talking

Maybe you don’t think of me
As much, I thought you did
I thought you would
I thought I could do it

I thought I could do this

This train ride
Is like my veins in my body
Like the alcohol that runs throughout his sitting next to me
I am looking away from him and pretending it is you, instead
I am pretending the smell
Is the taste and array of your breath
This is our connection
Watch it go, farther away

Watch it disappear
Watch it get smaller and smaller
Watch it move on to something other
Than what’s always been right here

Watch it sway, watch it crumble
This train is me
And I realize you’ll be sad
You didn’t get to see it leave

Once I am done,
I am not starting over again
Once I am here,
I am not ever leaving

Once I am alone,
I have pounded this road in, jack
Once I am home,
I am not coming back
Julia Betancourt
Written by
Julia Betancourt  19/New York
(19/New York)   
981
     Julia Betancourt, Perry and Fawn
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