Let sorrow know that I am coming for it —
Over the hill that opens on the valley where the train comes whistling through, all business and steel and particolored graffiti.
Let sorrow know that I’m going to ride it like that train, leap on as it slows down, grab those metal doors and force them apart to get to the heart of the thing.
Let sorrow know I’ll ride it to the very end of the line, last stop, plywood shack on dirt packed down by boots that don’t come around anymore.
Then, when the train has run out of rail, I’ll keep on going, into the place that sorrow’s carried me to; you see I’ve found nothing in the human race worth giving up on, exactly. All I need’s a change of scenery.
Let sorrow know its time has passed like that mud puddle in the woods behind the house, pretending to be a lake. All those summer storms filling it with delusions of grandeur. The wood ducks didn’t help matters any, with their paddling around.
But in the end, in the white hot heat of August, sorrow’s nothing but solid ground —
or maybe —
something else — the memory of water.
Let sorrow know that I remember it like the water I almost drowned in
but also
like the water I learned to swim in, water deep, water clear, water cool and running down my back like the tears that sometimes, here, on solid ground, in the place that sorrow’s carried me to, I still yearn for.
Oh.
Let sorrow know.
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