NOWHERE TO RUN TO....

I'm 9
going on
all of ten, when:

reading
TO ****
A MOCKING BIRD.

I wanted to be Scout
when I grew up
didn't matter I was a boy

just wanted to be
her
that great explorer

of how to be in the world
that great frontier of
becoming

then, in '67
the bus crash
happened

& there was always
that empty chair
a nowhere of me

always calling
my sister's name
I became Boo Radley

living inside my head
like it was a haunted house
with a me who wasn't

me no more
looking out of eyes
that belonged

to someone
else
like Boo...

I didn't
".. have anywhere
to run off to..."