Shadows Flickering In The Street Lights Poem by Chris G. Vaillancourt

Every night on the bus
I see the same vacant expressions
on the same faces.
Every night it is the
same routine, the same game
of pretending everyone
else is somewhere else.
Staring out the window
in the same seat at the same
buildings. Passing the same
street signs I see
every single night.
I am as vacant as the
slippery shadows that
frolic just outside my line
of vision. There are moments I
am convinced I have lost
my mind. There are seconds
I am certain I have become
a figure in somebody else's
illusionary world. Every night
I find myself thinking the same
pathethic thoughts that I always
extrapolate on this mundane bus ride.
I am a book that has not allowed
itself to be opened. Fresh ink on
the pages that has not been read.
Every tangled rope seems to bind
me tighter and tighter, until I can
sense the emotions leaving my soul.
Why do we continue to follow
the same patterns of disillusionment?
Is it that we are afraid to let
our hearts feel the emotions God
gave us to treasure? I suspect that
we have become so wrapped up
in our various performances that we
have forgotten that we are all of
the same breed.