This is my first train ride
and I'm absolutely mesmerized.

You meet a special breed of people
living in uniquely passionate ways.
Saying I'm inspired by their kind
is standing in a blizzard naked and saying
"I'm cold."

The thrill they give me is more
powerful than words can capture,
though I'll try to do my best
like photography with distorted aperture.

I want to write vagabond on a name-tag
and slap it mercilessly on my chest
as a gorilla beats his pounding heart
like a drum before the last stand.

I ditched my seat and found an empty car
to escape the commotion and strum my guitar.
Slowly, people followed and joined me,
I felt like Moses dividing the sea.

I can hardly sing and barely play
but as they listened I felt as if
I was singing the sound of the rain,
washing away the mud in their smiles.

Six people are sleeping on the floor.
Beside me, their silent presence is igniting.
I want to dance in their zeal;
let it burn me, in hopes that the scars will never heal.

Maybe I'm over romanticizing this moment
but I can't squelch the raw audaciousness.
It's in their eyes, and in their laughs,
and in the way they form sentences.

It's burrowed itself into my heart.
In this moment, I feel so alive,
this passion cannot die, the traveler's immorality,
I have become the wanderer's infinity.

*m.w