Pretty As A Picture

Swirls of red angrily coated the walls.

Nightmares whispered in the wind.

She saw him in the flashes of lightening.

We sat together in a bus-stop.

Alone, just her and I.

She wore a tattered blue coat and holey jeans.

She was just shy of 55.

Reeking odors of the road less traveled by.

Dirty, worn, hungry.

So…So…So hungry. She felt as if she was near death.

Her throat ran dry and her insides rumbled.

So…So…So hungry.

She spent her last dime.

Lost…So…So…Lost.

“Where are you going,” I thought, “what are you running from?”

She turned to me and asked, “What are you staring at kid?”

For you see,

 I was staring at her,

 studying every contour of her sorrows.

“Where are you headed?”  She looked at me and smiled.

“I am headed home.”  She pulled out a picture.

“You see, kid, this is where I’m headed every damn day.

 Every day, day after day, I’m going home.”

 She pointed to the picture.

It was a blue cottage

with five-foot daises

surrounding the perimeter.

Cute.

“I labor, I wait, I save, I starve,

just so I may go home one day.

I see that day in my mind.

The sun will be shining.

The birds will be chirping.

He will be gone.

He will be free to leave me be.

When that day comes I will no longer feel pain.

No hunger.

I can’t wait for that day. 

When I can finally go home. 

For that day will be as pretty as my picture.”