A hitchhiker
On the interstate of love.
It seems,
I am always hanging my thumb out
Searching for something real.
Anything real.
In what seems to me,
A very sad and ingenuine world.
Just as I thought I'd found meaning.
And for those I have loved,
Those I have left, or have gone from me
Was it your or I?

The want to be free.

she said she couldn't believe i was real
but really, i was made in a lab
where they proded and poked
till this thing came out!
want me to do a little dance for you!?
balance on my dome?
swallow a sword?

find an exit off the interstate

The Pain of Love
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M.

The pain of love is this:
the parting after the kiss;

the train steaming from the station
whistling abnegation;

each interstate’s bleak white bar
that vanishes under your car;

every hour and flower and friend
that cannot be saved in the end;

dear things of immeasurable cost ...
now all irretrievably lost.

Note: The title “The Pain of Love” was suggested by an interview with Little Richard, then eighty years old, in Rolling Stone. He said that someone should create a song called “The Pain of Love.” I have always found the departure platforms of railway stations and the vanishing broken white bars of highway dividing lines to be terribly depressing. Keywords/Tags: pain, love, parting, kiss, train, whistle, departure, platform, interstate, dividing, line, hour, flower, friend, lost, cost

there’s a loss of lasting joy
in life
there’s a wall…

you know, you’ve been in my thoughts
when it snows i see you wandering along interstate 88
or alone in your bed, sitting up, legs crossed
eyes closed

living in the past
while waiting for sleep

After wide-set earthen towers mask
the highway runoff, campers come off lofty
horses, signal boorishness to breeze. Sat alone
where rolling orange will tease
the peace from perfect dark - the hint of dread
forgoing litness to expose a martial bode -

the low-slung limbs of stern bring
trained to-wrist like faithful,
catching glimpses of what common good
afforded us naff hazes like the present
sickle answer, whale-bone grief and prescient
danger. Fix a poultice,
love’s soft landing seldom not
for treasures come.
Revive the brazen lungs

in boasts of rushes, random-lit,
forestalling sodden semblances of wit
from Sunday’s arsenal -
right-matched to cleaner absences
than your limited souls could ever pare.

She’s felt - a fabric after our own hearts,
a loan from common waltzes,
taciturn in downshifts of this archen land -
of course - of hand, a slight
anomaly for watchers to observe.
Each roadblock touches nerve.

Driving under these neon lights,
The wide open interstate makes for a lonely night.
Music drowning my perpetuating thoughts,
Blaring Hootie & The Blowfish, "Let Her Cry",
"I could not believe, she was the same girl I fell in love with long ago. She went in the back to get high..."
Which reminds me of the very first time I hung out with you,
That was your favorite line of the song,
I couldn't help but laugh because you sang it oh so wrong.
Thinking back on what we used to be,
I never wished you would've went overseas.
I can remember the knock on my door,
Looking so pale and cold,
Never forgetting the picture of your corps.
Yearning for what we would've been,
Letting you go away is one of my seven deadly sins.

“My sole goal in life is to keep racing
down the interstate without a clock
so I can keep going until people forget who I am.”
In my head I knew I was wrong
hypocritical, insane, illogical, but above all I was still
humane!
This, yes, this sole fact is what keeps me
separated from you
draw a straight line down the road we lived on
the squares and the circles.

You, with your fancy plaque and NHS bumper sticker
With the family of four and no reason to feel failure
With your perfect scores and magnificent vernacular
Who let you have it so easy?!

Me, with my Jimi Hendrix poster
family of who knows how many
and the chance to earn my GED in a few years
Why was it me?!

You met your wife in the 10th grade
You gave her a promise ring and everything
Even took her with you on spring break
Who said you didn't have to try?!

I was placed in the wards that year
they said it was insanity
I thought I was just thinking ahead
Why can’t they understand?!

BUT THEY ALWAYS UNDERSTAND YOU!

You, your Shakespeare perfect jargon
Mr. Right, Perfect, next coming of Beethoven
You were made to please everyone and become important!

And that’s what separates us.
Even though it’s the same street that raised us
I bought the Harley and your parents got you the Chevy.
And I recall the one time I was flying down the interstate
And caught up to you as you were going nothing higher than 70.
I stared at you and you kept your eyes on the road.
I don’t blame you, I knew that you just wanted to see my bomber jacket
I have a skull on fire on the back of it
So I gave you a great view
hope you enjoyed it.