Following the twisting,
bobbing fairy lights
deeper into the dark
Pennsylvania forest,
surrounded by the musky
scent dirt has at night
and the pervasive odor
of pine sap, his foot
finds in the darkness
a curled, coiled tree root
and he stumbles,
seems for the smallest
of moments to recover,
and plunges toward the
moss covered earth of
the midnight Keystone
State woodland.

He remembers hay bales
stacked in double
out by the tree he'd
hung the rope swing from.
A target placed and
a quiver of bolts
and a lesson about
violence, firstly
about the kind that
we do and finally
the kind done to him.
There is a small
tool shed that stands
a witness to the
moment when he
did his best not to
cry or to call out.

Snow would fall in feet
and schools would look
for terrifying accumulation
before they closed for the day.
He spent the two hour delay
sleeping, he hoped.
But hope is for the wealthy
and suffering is for the
poor and his thrift store
wardrobe told him how
the world worked.
He leapt from his warm
bed and started in on
the chores that barroom
visitations left undone.

He rode his bike down
to the poorly built
and badly lit little bar
his step father frequently
spent time in on nice
summer or cold winter days.
He nodded to the old man
who ran the place as he
Began walking the old man
back toward the house.
He'd come back for the bike
later on, assuming no one
took it before then.

There was a dirt road
and a gravel driveway.
The radio was static or
country music and the
days lasted forever
or at least they seemed to.
The lot next to his house
was huge and barren
and bordered by dense
northeastern forest.
If you walk in far enough
the world grows dim
and everything else,
all of it, is unseen.
It can't touch you,
nothing can.
He wondered if anyone
had ever decided to
just not come out.