And the Train Careened Off the Tracks

 

And the Train Careened Off the Tracks

(“You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day.” Psalm 91:5)

And the train careened off the tracks.

Maybe we are ugly for a reason,
maybe our crazy has hardened our faces.
I don’t know how to live normally,
there is too much that is contagious and
I live uncontained.

I visited the stage on the closing night
when several friends were players.
The music of drama, the greasepaint of comedy
have always enchanted me
and I wished I could join them in their
costumes and paces. Below the trodden boards
and after the curtain call
I walked past the limelight and loved
the champagne popping, the fogging machine
locked away for a season.
And I spent extra time with the one who,
though transferred from show to show,
removed from touch to memory,
had been my heart from Shakespeare to
silliness on high school afternoons. She
cried like we might never see each other again.

Sadness is not the same as fear,
tears are not equal to despair,
but the night remains restless while my
heart is tucked away beneath invisible arms.
Dreams come easy when the mind spills
from daylight frightening to night-time lighting
(just a covered bulb in the corner socket will suffice.)

And I ushered my thespian friends into the
next train hoping it would keep us all together
until the morning shone on our worn-out faces.
Settled in and lounging, drinks in hand and
kisses while the rails rocked us like a cradle
all the way

Until the end of the line when,
uninstructed about braking such a machine,
I sent the train careening off the tracks.

I awoke and you were gone; you had not died. But
still I miss you, whether in the long-waves of
memory
or the shortwave of dreams.