I Said To My Hometown,

I’m just passing through.
I won’t live here again.
I can’t. I see too well
to dare to think it could be done.
Within weeks after moving back
I’d tear myself up, lay myself
in a hole in the ground, set myself in
cement for archaeologists to find
centuries from now. They’d say
I was typical of the townsfolk
of the era and they’d be so right,
but I wouldn’t care then because death
has always had a way of erasing truth
and replacing it with lessons.
If I am not already
a lesson about my hometown
and how to set things in cement
that were once alive, why would I care
about becoming one after I’m dead?
All I can do is strive to be alive now,
right now, while striving to stay
the hell away from you,
and let today become the past
when I won’t care about any of this
any longer. Today, though, I’m just
passing through. I will forever be
just passing through.