The Fellow Passenger

-

 


“I have slowly become tangled

Just a knot of unfulfilled expectations

That I can’t figure out how to untie”

She stared out the window as she spoke

The bus was nearly empty

But I could tell these words weren’t meant for me

She continued…

“I have let down everyone I know

I’ve handed out disappointment like business cards

Like fliers at an airport

Like cake at an office party”

She uttered these thoughts with palpable regret

She had disappointed herself as well

This was evident

The bus slowed to a stop and she got off

I don’t know if she was on the phone talking to someone

Talking to herself

Talking to the night

I’ve never seen her again

I still think of her sometimes

When I disappoint someone, 

Or someone disappoints me

I hope, wherever she is, 

That things have gotten better for her

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Still Blooming: Notes from June 7, 2025

-
  Opening Reflection: June has arrived with its heavy green and its sudden rains. The air feels thicker, like it’s full of stories still half-formed. Some days I feel suspended between seasons. While remembering the promise of spring, I am bracing for summer’s heat.  Writing Update: I’ve spent much of this past week revisiting older work, not to revise it, but to reflect on it. One poem in particular came to mind after a recent conversation with my wife about small joys: the first blooms of the season, the reappearance of the birds in the yard, or how the light changes across the lake. Spotlight Poem: “Early Spring” Read it here: Early Spring (March 2022) This poem was inspired by a walk my wife and I took through Paintsville Lake State Park. It was still winter, but there were signs of an early spring The trail was still wearing winter’s grey and there was a cold breath of wind off the water. But in the middle of all that stillness, she saw them: the first wildflowers o...
Read more

Small Dark Spaces

-
Image
  When we were young Before we understood the world We sought out small dark spaces We slid under the bed We climbed into the dryer We closed ourselves up in the pumphouse We disappeared into the crawlspace We found solace in the kitchen cabinets We searched out these cramped places That could be shut off from view We were hiding from the monster in our home We were always found Now we are older I still shrink from the light I still pursue cramped dim hideaways I may always I hope you have fared better.
Read more

Considering Another Mountain

-
This week, I found myself staring into the past—and it stared right back. After pouring out fresh words during the NAPOWRIMO challenge in April, I shifted gears to revisit something old: a tattered notebook filled with poems I wrote over twenty years ago. As I work through the pages of that ancient text, I am surprised to find how my voice has changed. The themes and subjects are unchanged, but I feel that the voice of my poems has evolved. My early poems are raw, bursting with unfiltered emotion—sometimes chaotic, sometimes clumsy. Today’s voice feels different: more deliberate, like a stew that’s had time to simmer. Seasoned, in more ways than one. Both sets of words are important to me, and they both will be represented in my upcoming collections.  Even as my voice has matured, the themes remain hauntingly familiar—loneliness, doubt, the sense of never quite belonging. It’s sobering to realize I’ve been carrying these same emotional burdens for decades. That enduring struggle in...
Read more