Hometown

The roads are all the same.

They are cracked and warped

And always under construction,

Yet somehow remain littered with the same pot holes

That you hit every morning on the way to high school.

This intricate network of veins branches out across your hometown,

Creating a self contained cell of interconnectedness—

All roads leading back to the nucleus, your house.

You drive these streets for hours with no clear destination,

Taking lefts and rights at every four way stop.

You pass your own ghost running down the sidewalk in the mist

After you were kicked out of your house for the first time.

You pass the mailbox that you stopped at when your best friend came to pick you up,

And the VFW parking lot where you two sat for hours,

Crying until your eyes filled with broken red blood vessels

And you gagged on your own tears.

You continue on, pass Horace Mann Middle School,

And avoid looking at the red brick siding and vertical glass window

Because you know that you are still rooted here,

Still just as awkward as you where when you were thirteen,

With Hollister embroidered shirts and too much black eyeliner.

At the red light you see the St. Mary’s Church,

Where your baptism, communion, and confirmation occurred.

Your Sunday school Hell flashes before your eyes and you recap

Eight years of sitting in a rundown room at the Charter School,

Listening to your classmate’s father talk about “the all knowing power of God”

When everyone knew he was sleeping with the woman who worked at the CVS on Maple Street.

You don’t notice that the light turns green. The car behind you beeps. 

You take a right down Grove Street, toward the Franklin Mill.

This was the first place you ever smoked a cigarette,

And sat on the dirty floor in the long-abandoned building

Staring at the colorful graffiti on the walls for hours,

Watching an unending story unfold on the concrete.

You pull into the parking lot and turn around,

Back toward the center of the cell.

You merge onto the road,, but rather than take the same route home,

Bear left past the recently closed Red Brick Preschool, toward the far end of town.

You are numbed by the sharp turns of the narrow road

Which you could expertly navigate with your eyes closed.

The gingerbread mansions blur past, the next larger than the last.

You are lulled into a trance as you follow the misty double yellow lines.

The Smiths moan from your speakers:

The rain falls hard on a humdrum town,

This town has dragged you down.

You smile to yourself when you finally reach intersection at the end of the road

Because you know that the stop sign that used to mark this crossroad

Is sitting propped up in the corner Nick’s garage,

Much to the dismay of his mother—

Kelly had always hated you. Your face clouds.

You haven’t heard from Nick in almost a year.

You think of the “Best Friend Boy/Girl” superlative picture in your yearbook,

Which is currently collecting dust on your bookshelf.

You take a right toward Summer Street.

The Strokes whine at you while you slow down to yield for traffic.

You tap your hand against the steering wheel as you approach Starbucks on the right.

You spent every afternoon of your Junior and Senior year at the table in the corner

Drinking your weight in tea,

And writing shitty internet posts that you thought were as brilliant as the words of Milton.

I remember when you came

You taught me how to sing

Now, it seems so far away

You taught me how to sing

The road straightens out,

And from here you can look up and see the Franklin water tower

Which is barely visible in the misty haze that covers your town.

You press down hard on the gas pedal,

And remember the drag races you and your friends had on this road at two in the morning

When there was no alcohol to steal from your parents

And nothing good to watch on HBO.

You fondly remember the time Katie passed you going 60mph on the one lane road

But was considerate enough to put her blinker as she sped down the wrong side of the road.

You look down at the speedometer

And take your foot off of the pedal.

You can now see new Frozen Yogurt place off to the left.

You and your friends raced here once too.

You cut through the high school in order to beat the three other cars,

Which were absolutely packed with nervous energy, hormones and cigarette smoke.

Lucas hung out of the sunroof of your Jeep.

Screaming a victory cry has you pulled into the parking lot,

A fraction of a second before Katie.

You passed this plaza and looked straight ahead toward the road

And the rusted Town of Franklin water tower

With mildewed metal siding,

Full of stagnant water.

Whose poles are planted

Hundreds of feet into the ground.

You are the water tower,

The stagnant water incapable of escape,

The poles which are buried so far into the hard dirt

That there is no way the tower would ever be capable of movement.

Old Oak trees scatter across your shaded front yard—

Trees which can grow tall and sprout green leaves,

Trees that can bear acorns that are carried away with the wind,

Trees that can live to be hundreds of years old

But never really leave.