loneliest in the strange electric light of night
waiting incessantly for the cowboys i once thought i'd marry
and in the glow of these flashing signs
i see that all life is death
and all death is loneliness

years squandered away by pain
and understanding others will never know
a curse of unusable knowledge
and pulled in so many ways
that a life on the road
is the best escape

and even for that exodus
that great purging of all the confines life has taught us,
i can find no companion
and i am lonely everywhere
and everywhere i find no respite
and maybe it is better to be lonely alone
than among the grasping hands of others

clicks and blinks in the blackness of night
and all the acidity of the human soul piercing out through the pores

camping in the back of an old trailer
with green, moth-eaten upholstery
and a smelly cousin
who will never learn to spell
and whose teeth will rot out of her mouth
before her 21st birthday

i can lie there with all the wonder of the past sins
committed against me
real or imagined
dreamlike and created
like stories from my fantasy world
until they wash across me
and become another confused illusion,
another secret like so many parts of my life
i can neither remember nor understand

smelling that mustiness
half ocean, half old carpet
i feel young again with the memory
of hopes and loves and the mystery of things yet to come

and i know
i am safe
no one will look for me here
in the back of this rusted tank,
my only home, as far as i can tell