From the moment I elevated from my nonsensical age

I have become endlessly dedicated to leave this place

Moving? From here? You’re home?!

You BETCHA!

From modular homes that polka-dot

Gravel driveways, a weedy old cracked sidewalk

With plastic flowers stickin’ out sideways -

The pride of old ladies

Dollar store gardens permeating the village of

Sticky

Where I reside

Under dark gray skies

With a travelling bone I pray, someday

I can use and see more of our world

 

I never told anybody how or when

But, oh, surely, I daydream again and again

About the last walk I’d have

Down that weedy sidewalk path,

By phony plastic petals of chrysanthemum

Outside houses of flimsy linoleum

The better part of my childhood measured by

Days and days, in vain masturbation

To the 10 o’clock whistle of

 

Stuck St. Station  

 

Stuck St. Station, you must understand

Is the one, the only, way out of this hilly-billy land

As I am too dirt poor to own any vehicle or

Other means of transportation, so my dream relies

strictly on sweet locomotion.

Based on a timeline constructed by a railway engineer

I fear every ten o’clock schedule

(My obsession with freedom occasionally

becomes just about sexual)

 

Stuck St. Station you see

There are 25 steps between you and me

If you were standing on those tracks

And I’m peering through

My bedroom window glass.

Believe me I counted,

I die to know how close freedom rolls at ten

from my bedroom window

Without taking me along for a ride

 

 Through Stuck St.

(Full of locomotion that’s sweet)

A million trains must’ve came and went

Packed with only a few things, like mail being sent

So with the extra space

Hobos do happen into Sticky from time to time

Riding the rails

Seems like, just to tease me from my low class

prison cell

For often, they’d stop by my house

to sleep on our couch, and eat our meals

just enough exposure to remind myself

that I’m a poser, ‘til I hit the road.

 

As you almost certainly ascertain by this point in our story

my brain couldn’t quite handle being anymore sorry for myself

When I saw the only way out of my

Small town frying pan,

Without falling into fire

Leave me, again and again and again

Right on time, by high pitch screams of the rail

At the ten o’clock of Stuck St. Station,

I sit in my jail

 

Looking out the bedroom window where I can see

This contraption of coal and steam, where I could just piggy back to a new horizon

 

I watch like if I watched hard enough

All my problems would be up and

Puff!

Away on the black black hot steam that rose

Pouring from its cone shaped nose

A fire from the belly of this animal rises

While I get caught up in the glow and fight

The decision to not just jump on

right then and there

 

And of course,

I never did!

 

Because my mom’s eyes would certainly be red

With regret and fear her baby was gone for good

Then she’d be left all

 

In her lonesome.  

 

And how much sense would that make?

I bet, she wouldn’t take

My baby bro jack;

blow away like the breeze

just cause its at her back

When the working got uneasy

In the half employed

town of Sticky

 

And let me tell ya

That’s how things went

Until the day my momma quit paying the rent

we could never afford to keep living there

Took my last breath, fresh-homey air

Ready to fill my lungs with coal tar

On any next red boxcar,

Would the consequences haunt me, if I hopped?

On a ten o’clock,

if I never stopped?

 

I wish I could explain how strange

It was to see, so far back

The village of Sticky,

a surreal experience of  

Finally enjoying the view from the opposite side 

 

And then all the sudden!

Wild wicked fear, panicking faster,

Like a   

My great runaway dream, now dissolving to disaster

So I pulled out some old Polaroid I carried in a levi pocket

Used my eyes in their sockets to discern, realize

How family was the only glue holding

My rambling heart in one good piece

 

Made me guilty as charged.

Made me feel so, so

Rash for my selfishness

Leaving all my problems behind to stay

Running away that way, and I decided I would

Take a real quick break,

walk off

while the opportunity to talk

to the people I loved still remained.

So I said:

 

“Hey ma

 I’ve always wanted to go on a vacation,

Me, you

Maybe Jack, too?

I know we can’t afford the

magnificent cost,

Now that your job is

completely lost.

 

On the other hand,

I’ve obtained a free method of transportation

So meet me with your bags outside

Stuck St. Station?”

 

And she smiles.

 

Ever since I left those damn dirt driveways

I can only look back, laugh, tilt my head sideways

And regret not living as much as I should;

Cause when you’re not waiting for your whistle

Life

is pretty damn good!