One place I used to retreat to

when I was a kid

was under our mobile home

on a bed of sand

where I listened to spiders

making noises

and imagined I’d found

an ancient tomb

in some exotic place

and to this day this is how

I think about my own thinking

whenever I think about how

I’m alone in a world

where nobody cares about

finding me,

and another place I used to hang

was on the railroad tracks

where I’d stare down along them

to their vanishing point

until I could almost see a train

I believed was coming to save me

and take me out of my life

and now this is how I pray

to be saved by a mirage I know

I’ll never see. What matters most

doesn’t change.