We are all strays
Searching for a home
In the secret places
Of each other.

Stars reign overhead  .  .  .
Before day, showers of bliss,
  .  .  .  Sun takes her away.

I dream of going far away.
Plunging into the grandeur
And the vastness
Of the world.
I am ready to leave this place;
I am ready, I say,
To be away.

I will write and draw,
And take drugs with strangers.
I will sleep on the beach,
Bathe in rivers,
And plunge into nature,
Away from four walls,
From screens and cars,
And toward greenery and stars;
Splendid laughter and epiphanies
Spilling from the ether,
Behind trees and over mountains,
In the silent water of calm lakes,
And in the crimson sky
Of some northwestern twilight.

I will wander abandoned roads
And drink coffee in midnight diners
Thousands of miles from home,
For the road beckons,
And the moon never waits.

The wanderlust of youth
Is nothing to waste.

I'm not an
honors student or
an athlete.
I don't have
good grades and
I fail all the time.

          Still, I bet that I
    smile more
than you.