It's a long walk

 It’s a long walk home from just about anywhere I go

Either by design, misfortune, bad decisions or just bad luck I’ve never owned a car

So I walk

I walk to work

I walk to pay my bills

I walk to eat and to see friends

Sometimes I’ll walk home with bags and bags of groceries in my arms

Thirty pounds of groceries gets heavy after about thirty steps

You have to walk, though, when you don’t have a car

Everyday

For everything

I walk when it’s so hot you can’t breathe and when it’s so cold you can’t feel your hands

I walk in the pouring rain

The same people pass you

Everyday

They all have nice cars

Even the people with s**t cars have smug faces

I wonder if I’m the same to them as a bum on the freeway

Just another poor person

More like a part of the landscape

I think about this often

There’s a lot of time to think when you’re walking everywhere

You think about money, or lack thereof, rather

You think about schemes and ways to get on top of life

You think about what a f*****g loser you are

You think about all the people you used to know and how successful they are now

They have jobs in cities in office buildings

Their cars take them there

That’s not the life I want, though

If I had a car I’d drive

Everyday

I’d drive as far as I could get before I went broke

I’d drive and see and explore and live

Everyday

Every f*****g day, man

I think people with cars take that ability for granted

The ability to explore

If I had a car I’d be out there in the world

I wouldn’t be in a parking garage

I wouldn’t be adjusting my tie in the rear view mirror

I wouldn’t be stuck in a traffic jam

I’d be outdoors, far away from the urban sprawl

Back to nature

I don’t mean like the flower kids turned millionaires who hike the Ozarks while wearing Birkenstocks

I mean like the places we’ve never even seen pictures of

There is so much out there that I can’t reach

You can’t just walk off into the wilderness

You have to drive

Drive until the roads all end

Drive to the oceans

Escape, really

Because that’s what it is

That’s why people vacation

That’s why friends take road trips and even those big corporations have retreats

They all drive their cars to the woods and breathe in some fresh air for a minute

I can’t walk to a god damn nature retreat

I can’t walk to an airport sixty miles away and buy a plane ticket

Even if I had extra cash it wouldn’t be enough to go on vacation

Or buy a car

 So I don’t go anywhere

I just walk

Walk around town and run my trivial errands

Everyday

Everyday

Every f*****g day, man

And it’s no fun

Because it’s a long walk home from just about anywhere I go

Reviews

[Brenden Taylor]

When I finished reading this, I went back and counted the lines in it - 67 lines. And then I asked myself, "Why did I just read 67 lines of a guy complaining?"

Not trying to be petty by saying this, but this poem doesn't give the reader anything to invest in. Sure, you offer us pictures of the car-less life, but there are no powerful images that demand our attention and imagination. It's all shallow.

And it's also scattered - so many good ideas spread too thin. I'd say there's at least ten distinct poems already in here. Extracting them, of course, would require a lot of focus and creativity.

If you're going for the "rant and rave" effect, good - because that's what I got.

[jdcdickenson]

The reason you read sixty-seven lines of a guy complaining is because it's captivating. Walk away from the piece feeling however you want, but i grabbed and held your attention. It's strictly a dissertation on my views regarding the subject; A view that was well written enough to keep you focused for 67 lines.