Going Home - Poem #57

You go back to the place you grew up
and find it’s changed
houses and bars that are no more
the ones still standing, unrecognizable

and you see her now,
the teen beauty of your youthful dreams
a cocktail waitress at the local
chain chicken wing joint

and the jock wide receiver
a depressed, pot smoking auto mechanic
once a smash hit
on the small town party scene

remembering the pranks
the ritual, the desecration
hallucinogenic drug induced fiascos
the beautiful sound that came from her mouth

that  tender mouth;
her eyes look at you
with the slightest hint of recognition
perhaps remembering the bon fires and drunk driving

before her kids, before divorce
before she worried about her weight.
her drinking, her credit cards
falling asleep alone, a fan blowing on her face.

You moved away
the point of departure no longer matters;
You’re still invisible to her in the neon light
just as you were then.

.

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[angel]

When I find myself in the neighborhood where I grew up in Hartford, CT, I find Magnolia Street very changed.
There were no bars on the windows of our house, back then--but now there are.The sidewalk outside my long ago home was not cracked and buckled-- but now, it is.
The driveway in which I spun my wooden tops had a more or less permanent hopscotch grid. When I looked at it the last time I found myself in the neighborhood, it cheerfully invited me, in a festive green chalk, to f**k myself.
I wonder what happened to the people who lived upstairs; an Irish family like mine, the O'Briens. I'm sure Mrs. O'Brien had nothing to do with the chalked obscenity.
They say you can never go home. I guess they're right.

[toritto]

Thank you for commenting Angel. Indeed, it has been my experience that going home is mostly disappointment - what is lost, is lost.

Best regards from Florida