Escape

People only want what’s best.
They want to know what’s wrong with me,

that darkness on a sun-drenched Monday.

Their rescue unit was the one that originally
sent out the search and destroy orders.

The same instructions that kept me from staying
in the place where normalcy thieves the day.

I stayed away, hid on the side of the road,
waited for a singular surprise.

Fast living on the Death/Love Freeway
has dubbed me the pauper of absurdity,

the poor man’s P.T. Barnum.

A scene that brings such folderol,
fatuous optimism of the worse kind,
snickers behind the back of my mind
like the naivety of

curious children investigating their privates.