I have no excuses.
I wasn’t misunderstood.
I wasn’t ahead of my time.
I wasn’t fiercely independent.
I just missed the train, all the trains, over and over again. Stood nervous on the platform, and waited.
Waited for the next train, and the next.
Drank at the station, taking notes, making lists. Ready to get on, soon as I completed my list.
Read the big board, all the cities along the track, distant destinations. Oh, Atlanta! Memphis, Austin, Eugene. Might as well have been Mars.
Didn’t want to catch the wrong one, get my only ticket punched for the wrong town.
Along about midnight, picked up my bag and went on home, whistles cryin’ in the night.
Perhaps you internalized the Tom Waits lyrics too much: It was a train that took me away from here, but a train can’t bring me home.
I used to worry when I lived in England. The last train out of Ealing to home was always far too early. If I missed it — I would have to take an expensive taxi. It was always a worrisome event.
Of course most of my friends lived near school. How was that fair?!!
Who doesn’t pause to wish and wonder about what might have been? However, it seems wise not to linger too long in lost opportunities or we’ll soon regret our wasted time.
I hate when that happens.
And, if it’s already happened, why doesn’t it stop happening already?
Ahh well. I s’pose it’s better than Nothing At All happening. Hmmm… For the most part, anyway.
I, on the other hand, got ON those trains. And then found myself in the Wrong Goddamned Place. Again. And broke. And needing to find a way back to a town that I recognized.
I’ve had to learn to dispense with regrets. If I believed in reincarnation, that would have to be the lesson of this lifetime. Or one of the lessons, anyway.
RoD is broken!! Can you fix it?!!