Wanderlust

The city streets call me
in some James Dean-ish shrugging off the rain
sort of existential wanderlust,
like there’s a crime I’m about to commit,
whether I know it or not.
There is no room for dreaming anymore.
Everything is hard,
whether you’re going for the metaphor
or if it’s really something like a brick wall
hitting your face, because
you forgot to look in the obvious place
(open your eyes, just maybe).
We’re bent on something,
usually, and I mean that with purpose;
crouched over a sewer, groping
for the One Ring that you let slip
and roll out of your grasp.
Nobody can think ahead enough that it
makes a real difference
once the wheels contact, and the rubber burns.
And the pavement is wet
with the crocodile tears of a million salesmen,
and we never knew that we never knew
— we could go somewhere
else, you know? Rainy days
shouldn’t keep us from going out
into that gray dollop of a world, the city,
walk right into a broken heart
and set up shop, there at the end of the world:
where everything holds its breath,
and you let out a burp to ease the tension.
Don’t laugh. It’ll happen.